Diabetes is a disease in which blood sugar levels are too high. A hormone called insulin helps sugar get into cells, giving them the energy they need. Depending on the type of diabetes, insulin production is impaired or cut off totally. The goal of stem cell treatment for diabetes is to repair insulin-producing cells. Several studies and current clinical trials are showing great promise.
Benefits
People with type 1 diabetes have a pancreas that no longer makes insulin, and as a result, they need to monitor their blood sugar levels frequently, watch their diet, and inject insulin into themselves several times a day. The benefit of developing a stem cell treatment for diabetes is that patients might one day no longer need to monitor blood sugar or take insulin.
Function
Stem cells found in humans have the potential to develop into many different cell types in the body, such as muscle cells, red blood cells or insulin-producing cells. Insulin-producing cells are found in the pancreas. The function of stem cell treatment in diabetes is to get these stem cells to turn into insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and thereby reverse the effects of diabetes.
Research
A 2007 study from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and a 2009 study from Northwestern University in Chicago have shown that stem-cell therapy stopped the need for insulin injections in type 1 diabetics for the first time. Their bodies started to produce the hormone naturally again. One of the patients eliminated the need for insulin totally. However, eight of the research participants relapsed and resumed insulin injections. Diabetes experts concluded the some of the results reported are exciting but the numbers of patients studied were small. No approved treatment yet exists, but research is continuing.
Drugs in Development
Osiris Therapeutics and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation are developing a stem cell treatment for newly diagnosed type 1 diabetics. Prochymal is made up of mesenchymal stem cells, or MSCs for short. Preclinical studies found that MSCs can delay the progression of type 1 diabetes. The stem cells in Prochymal are harvested from the bone marrow of healthy young adult donors, avoiding the controversy surrounding embryonic and fetal cell sources. Prochymal is currently being evaluated in a clinical trial consisting of 62 recently diagnosed type 1 diabetics, ranging from 12 to 35 years old.
Federal Policy
Stem cell therapy has developed as a result of both embryonic and adult stem cell research. Research on human embryonic stem cells is controversial, but it does hold great promise for the development of therapies for chronic and debilitating diseases such as diabetes. President Bush limited the lines of embryonic stem cells that were eligible for federal funding in 2001. In 2009, President Obama signed an Executive Order to repeal President Bush's 2001 order. As a result, the National Institute for Health approved 27 new human embryonic stem cell lines for research on diabetes.
References
- National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases: Diabetes Overview
- National Institutes of Health: Stem Cells
- "The Journal Of the American Medical Association": Autologous Nonmyeloablative Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation in Newly Diagnosed Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus
- "The Journal Of the American Medical Association" Stem Cell Transplantation
- Osiris Therapeutics Inc: Osiris Therapeutics Receives FDA Orphan Drug Designation for Stem Cell Treatment for Type 1 Diabetes
