Diabetic Men May Be Able To Grow Their Own Insulin-Producing Cells 148
An anonymous reader writes "Men with type 1 diabetes may be able to grow their own insulin-producing cells from their testicular tissue, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) researchers who presented their findings today at the American Society of Cell Biology 50th annual meeting in Philadelphia. Their laboratory and animal study is a proof of principle that human spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) extracted from testicular tissue can morph into insulin-secreting beta islet cells normally found in the pancreas. And the researchers say they accomplished this feat without use of any of the extra genes now employed in most labs to turn adult stem cells into a tissue of choice."
Temporary solution? (Score:5, Insightful)
From what I understand (and this may very well be wrong), Type 1 diabetes is when the immune system breaks down beta islets leaving one unable to produce insulin. So wouldn't this be a highly temporary fix, before the immune system goes to town again?
If so, I don't know if a lifetime of being stabbed in the balls is preferable to a lifetime of insulin injections.
Re:Type 2? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, diabetes really refers to excess urine. What we normally call diabetes is diabetes mellitus, which means "sweet urine" (mellitus being sweet, similar to Apis mellifera, the honeybee). Diabetes insipidus refers to excess, non-sweet urine (insipidus meaning "plain, without taste" a la insipid).
That being said, once something is standardized, scientists tend not to rename things the way they should be. The best example is, of course, the flow of current, but issues with IUPAC nomenclature and the periodic table in general are rife with oddities as well. The best place for things to actually get renamed properly is probably the binomial classification of species, but even that can be severely entrenched (recent hubbub over D. melanogaster). That, and psychology and the DSM, but you know how those people are...