By Amy Price PhD
The Journal of the American Medical Association, reported on a study of young adults with newly diagnosed diabetes. These young people were treated with their own stem cells. 20 out of 23 reduced or ended dependence on insulin as their bodies took over production of insulin. Twelve patients stayed off insulin for extended periods, while eight relapsed and returned to low-dose shots. Three didn’t respond. The average time individuals avoided insulin shots was 31 months
The concept driving the research is as follows. In type I diabetes, the patient’s immune system turns on the beta cells that produce insulin, the hormone that breaks down the glucose we eat in food. Eventually, the immune cells will virtually eliminate all of the body's beta cells, and glucose levels will start to climb. Researchers considered if they wiped out the original immune system and replaced it with stem cells it could reset the person’s immune system with disease free cells.
Patients are fist treated with chemotherapy to reduce overactive immune system. Stem cells extracted from the patient’s own blood are grown out and later returned through intravenous injection. This procedure is carried out within six weeks of initial diagnosis for best chance of recovery.
The procedure is certainly not risk free as complications of the stem-cell treatment included pneumonia in two patients, low sperm counts in nine of the 17 men in the study, and endocrine dysfunction in three patients.
Levels of C Peptide were measured as this substance shows up when cells are making insulin. 20 out of 23 participants showed improved insulin production.
Julio Voltarelli, and colleagues at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, with colleagues in the U.S. worked on this project. Voltarelli's team has managed to show that the stem cells can give long-lasting beta cells a chance to grow — at least ones that can produce insulin for about three years. Other researchers are pursuing intriguing new stem cell options, including stem cells that can be grown from a patient's own skin, which would eliminate the need for extracting immune stem cells from bone marrow.
No one considers this a cure yet but it is a step in the right direction “A cure is needed, but it will probably not come from a single breakthrough,” wrote Christopher D. Saudek of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, in an accompanying editorial. "I wouldn't use the word cure," says Dr. Richard Burt, one of the co-authors from Northwestern University. "But it appears we changed the natural history of the disease. It's the first therapy for patients that leaves them treatment-free — no insulin, no immune suppression for almost five years."
"Every door that we open leads to another door," says Burt. "All research is built by sitting on the shoulders of other studies. This trial is something that will contribute to and move the field of stem cell therapy forward." It is, as Burt says, a start. For a Julio Voltarelli and colleague webcast click here
A study using donor adult bone marrow stem cells has garnered FDA approval with a company called Osiris Approximately 60 patients will be enrolled in this trial. Male and female patients are eligible and must be between the ages of 18 and 30 years old. Patients must have been diagnosed with T1DM based on the ADA criteria and must be screened for clinical trial eligibility between 2 and 16 weeks from initial T1DM diagnosis.
If you or someone you know has recently been diagnosed with T1DM and you would like more information, please contact us at Diabetes@Osiris.com.
There is also a study underway as of March for type 2 Diabetes. The university of Miami in conjunction with other sites are starting clinical trials combining adult stem cell therapy with hyperbaric oxygen as this combination was quite promising in an initial pilot study. As of January 2009 Researchers were planning to recruit patients between the ages of 45 and 65 who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes after age 40 and have had the disease for more than five but less than 15 years. The media contact for this research is below. You can read more at http://www.diabetesresearch.org/Newsroom/NewsReleases/DRI/oxygenstemcells.htm
Media Contact:
Jeanne Krull
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
305-243-4853 / 305-812-6668
jkrull@med.miami.edu
The image is borrowed from a blog with a really concise nicely done diabetes information site http://kirstyne.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/another-reason-to-keep-your-weight-in-check-diabetes/
More information can be found at http://www.diabetes.org/
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