For the first time in the world, diabetes is treated with cell therapy, Chinese scientists have done wonders

 

For the first time in the world, a patient's diabetes has been cured by cell therapy. A group of Chinese scientists and doctors has brought a ray of hope for patients suffering from diabetes. A team of doctors and researchers from Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Renji Hospital in Shanghai has achieved this success.

This research was published in the journal Cell Discovery on April 30. The patient is 59 years old and has been living with type 2 diabetes for 25 years. There are many types of diabetes, of which type 2 is the most common. It affects about 90 percent of patients. It is largely related to diet and develops over time.

Got rid of insulin injections

The patient had a kidney transplant in 2017, but most of his pancreatic islets had stopped working. The job of the pancreas is to control blood glucose levels. Due to this, the patient had to depend on multiple insulin injections every day..

The patient underwent an innovative cell transplant in July 2021. Eleven weeks after the transplant, he did not require external insulin. The dose of oral medication was gradually reduced to control blood glucose levels and was completely discontinued after a year. The patient was followed up after the transplant. It was found that the patient's pancreatic islet function was effectively restored. The patient has now been completely off insulin for 33 months.

One step closer to a cancer cure

The team of researchers says that this study will lead to a significant advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic condition that affects the way our body converts food into energy. What we eat is broken down into glucose and passes into the bloodstream.

Insulin is needed to control blood sugar levels, which is the job of the pancreas. When someone has diabetes, this system gets hijacked. Either the body does not make enough insulin or it cannot effectively use whatever insulin is made. Scientists around the world have been researching islet transplantation as an alternative, mainly by creating islet-like cells from human stem cells. Now, decades later, a group of Chinese scientists has come a step closer.