A Stem-Cell Cure For Type 1 Diabetes? For One Man, It Seems To Have Worked (yahoo.com) 48
Long-time Slashdot reader fahrbot-bot shares the New York Times' report on a 64-year-old man who participated in a clinical trial by Vertex Pharmaceuticals involving an infusion of insulin-producing pancreas cells grown from stem cells.
"Now his body automatically controls its insulin and blood sugar levels." Mr. Shelton, now 64, may be the first person cured of the disease with a new treatment that has experts daring to hope that help may be coming for many of the 1.5 million Americans suffering from Type 1 diabetes. "It's a whole new life," Mr. Shelton said. "It's like a miracle." Diabetes experts were astonished but urged caution.
The study is continuing and will take five years, involving 17 people with severe cases of Type 1 diabetes. It is not intended as a treatment for the more common Type 2 diabetes.
"We've been looking for something like this to happen literally for decades," said Dr. Irl Hirsch, a diabetes expert at the University of Washington who was not involved in the research. He wants to see the result, not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, replicated in many more people. He also wants to know if there will be unanticipated adverse effects and if the cells will last for a lifetime or if the treatment would have to be repeated. But, he said, "bottom line, it is an amazing result...."
For Mr. Shelton the moment of truth came a few days after the procedure, when he left the hospital. He measured his blood sugar. It was perfect. He and Ms. Shelton had a meal. His blood sugar remained in the normal range.
Mr. Shelton wept when he saw the measurement.
"The only thing I can say is 'thank you.'"
15 people in a lab spent over 20 years working on converting the stem cells, the article reports. The total cost: about $50 million.
"Now his body automatically controls its insulin and blood sugar levels." Mr. Shelton, now 64, may be the first person cured of the disease with a new treatment that has experts daring to hope that help may be coming for many of the 1.5 million Americans suffering from Type 1 diabetes. "It's a whole new life," Mr. Shelton said. "It's like a miracle." Diabetes experts were astonished but urged caution.
The study is continuing and will take five years, involving 17 people with severe cases of Type 1 diabetes. It is not intended as a treatment for the more common Type 2 diabetes.
"We've been looking for something like this to happen literally for decades," said Dr. Irl Hirsch, a diabetes expert at the University of Washington who was not involved in the research. He wants to see the result, not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, replicated in many more people. He also wants to know if there will be unanticipated adverse effects and if the cells will last for a lifetime or if the treatment would have to be repeated. But, he said, "bottom line, it is an amazing result...."
For Mr. Shelton the moment of truth came a few days after the procedure, when he left the hospital. He measured his blood sugar. It was perfect. He and Ms. Shelton had a meal. His blood sugar remained in the normal range.
Mr. Shelton wept when he saw the measurement.
"The only thing I can say is 'thank you.'"
15 people in a lab spent over 20 years working on converting the stem cells, the article reports. The total cost: about $50 million.
Re:You cannot cure a disease unless you know what (Score:5, Informative)
I don't understand why you think we can't cure diseases without knowing why they happen. That would seem to be contradicted by the numerous times people were cured before modern genetics could explain why the cures worked.
Re: You cannot cure a disease unless you know what (Score:3)
So if the pancreas was grown from his own stem cells he wouldn't need to take the medication?
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Not likely unless engineered, because his immune system didn't like his own pancreatic cells before it could attack it again. They may need to use a tolerizing vaccine to ensure it won't get attacked again (unless they eliminate expression the antigen that was being targeted). A simpler solution in my opinion is encapsulated beta cells (look up sernova and viacyte) -- no immune suppression required. Although, a tolerizing vaccine anyway won't hurt.
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Encapsulated beta cells have been shown to work, long lasting and without fibrosis. Both Sernova, ViaCyte, and others have shown this. Viacyte did have some problems in certain cases a few years back, but they overcame those.
One Reference (older technology): https://viacyte.com/press-rele... [viacyte.com]
"Several two-year VC-01-250 explants had regions containing insulin-producing beta cells and glucagon-producing alpha cells, indicating that when engraftment occurs, cells can persist for long durations without the need
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From their own FAQ:
>What proportion of patients does not require insulin after islet transplantation?
>1/3 of patients are off insulin. Average duration is 2.5 - 3 years but can be up to 11 years.
>More than 75% have evidence of a functioning transplant beyond 5 years leading to stable glucose values and no hypoglycemia.
So this is in the realm of "unlikely to get you off insulin, even less likely to last more than a few years".
Re:You cannot cure a disease unless you know what (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it may be the same drug as transplants, but for a different reason. For transplants you're trying to prevent the patient's immune system from rejecting *foreign* cells. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, so what they may be trying to do is prevent the patient's immune system from rejecting *his own* cells.
Re:You cannot cure a disease unless you know what (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly this + saved me from saying the same. The whole cause of the disease is the body attacking the cells and there's no reason it wouldn't attack them again.
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There's a possible association [oup.com] with rotavirus infection as a potential trigger.
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While knowing the exact reason for a disease sure helps finding a cure that deals with the root cause, it's quite possible to cure it without even knowing what causes it. Medicine wouldn't have had any success in curing diseases until about 100 years ago if knowing the exact cause is the mandatory precondition for finding a successful cure.
Re: You cannot cure a disease unless you know what (Score:2)
We can explain why in some cases. And we have an idea of why in a lot of other cases. Also, plenty of diseases were cured without knowing why. One example of many: The Incas were able to cure malaria using quinine without knowing how it worked or what causes malaria. All they knew is that if you develop a shivering fever, an extract of cinchona tree bark cures it.
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One may argue the whole of Chinese Medicine is based on not knowing how anything works and just randomly getting some things right. It's human nature to require an explanation for anything, even if it's a bad one.
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Just like most traditional medicine.
Re: You cannot cure a disease unless you know what (Score:2)
You keep posting that Faustmann lab thing, it is not a cure. Even Faustmann does not claim complete reversal. At best it has shown a slight improvement of about 10 percent in HbA1c scores. Reference: https://www.faustmanlab.org/wp... [faustmanlab.org] There are much better cures than that such as encapsulated beta cells.
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I doesn't sound logical to me that increasing the BCG dosage will magically regenerate all the beta cells that the immune system destroyed. At best a few hidden stragglers the immune system missed or couldn't reach might come back. Do you think BCG is smart enough to tell non-beta cells to become beta cells? That seems implausible, at best it might be able to allow some late developing beta cell precursors to survive. But how many of those are there? By the way, I previously pasted a link showing that even
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" Also, having to take immune suppressing drugs isnâ(TM)t a cure, but very close to one."
His own stem-cells create a new pancreas of sorts, no immune system suppression needed.
Something else to be thankful for (Score:5, Interesting)
There are already treatments for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (60% efficacy) and a few other maladies on the market as a result of stem cell research. In addition to cancer and diabetes, clinical studies and trials are underway to battle heart disease.
We are right on the verge of increasing both quality and longevity of life.
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Wonder how I can get involved in one of those trials. No pancreas, and I'm long since tired of having to take insulin every meal.
I'd be delighted to be part of a clinical trial for something like this....
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Where are you located? Try to join the trials for Viacyte and Sernova. Also, why haven't you got the CGM artificial pancreas setup, that is: Tandem + Dexcom G6. You know about that right?
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New Orleans area.
And no, I don't know about the CGM artitifical pancreases (pancreasi?). Something to ask my doctor about next time I see one of them, aye....
Are we talking augment to a not-quite-up-to-snuff pancreas, or "replacement part for a missing pancreas"?
My thanks for the tip, though. I obviously need to pay more attention to medical news.... .
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One is called the Control-IQ from Tandem and the other is the MiniMed 770G. They are more like an FDA approved replacement for a missing pancreas, mechanical though, not an actual biological pancreas. The way it works is that it automatically pumps insulin doses based on the readings of an FDA approved Continuous Glucose Monitoring device such as the Dexcom G6 or G7 and an Insulin pump. The current US FDA approved devices only pump insulin, not glucagon yet (which some people want.)
Read these links: https:/ [uvahealth.com]
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There are already treatments for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (60% efficacy) and a few other maladies on the market as a result of stem cell research.
And to think, some people still want this type of research to be completely illegal. Fools.
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One of the multitude of justifications I've heard for refusing the Covid vaccine is because the vaccines are made by growing the viruses in fetal cells.
In truth, only the J&J vaccine is prepared that way, and the fetal cells used are lab grown from two terminated pregnancies in the 1960's.
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There will still be some people in Texas who will be taking crab salts to cure their diabetes because they heard it on Joe Rogan.
Crab salts? You mean Old Bay.
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Let them. It's not like humanity is on the verge of dying out. Consider it chlorinating the gene pool.
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Consider it chlorinating the gene pool.
Yep. I've always said that the gene pool needed some chlorine in it. Let the stupid kill themselves off.
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Never heard of this before.
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I've been wondering what the anglosphere far left's latest reason to be salty with Joe Rogan is.
I didn't imagine it would be actual salt. To the point where this slashdot thread is my first search result for "joe rogan crab salts diabetes" on DDG. Darn, you're so salty, even the duck went after you.
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See, this is the problem with far left. You genuinely believe that you are intelligent, and therefore completely understand simple concepts like irony.
And then you try using it. And it's exactly as the saying goes. "It's better stay silent and let others think you an idiot, than open your mouth and remove all doubt".
False (Score:5, Interesting)
First off it has been cured before using this method, 20 years ago. Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov] at least one of the patients from that year 2000 study is currently still cured as of June 2021. In fact another lab reported a stem cell based cure before the lab in the article did. Reference: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov] But it is not a proper cure if you have to be on immunosuppressants. The better cure appears to be encapsulated beta cells which are currently in clinical trials from ViaCyte ( PEC-Encap ), Serbia, and others which also have shown signs of being a cure .. without immunosuppressants. In fact Meltons lab is now looking at encapsulated beta cells too. Best I can tell the article was poorly researched, maybe an ad for Vertex pharma? I dunno.
Re: False (Score:3)
Oops, the company name Sernova got autocorrected to Serbia. Although, maybe the Serbians are looking at encapsulated beta cells too. Anyway, I wanted to give two company names so that I am not just an ad for one. There are other companies too btw, and institutions or universities.
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Options for treating autoimmune diseases are much better than they were in 2001. While a magic bullet hasn't been found for Type 1, it may be reasonable to revisit approaches that didn't work twenty years ago because we can preserve the functional gains longer.
about $50 million (Score:1)
Just one step on a long road (Score:2)
As far as I can tell, this is just one step closer to a cure that’s still quite far away.
Doctors have been able to "cure" type 1 diabetes for decades. They do a pancreas transplant. However, because of the risk of rejection and the immunosuppressants you have to take, they only did it when doing another organ transplant at the same time (if you have to take immunosuppressants anyway...). There have also been several studies injecting just the islets that make insulin, which work quite well.
This change
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Noting: The article mentions that there also aren't enough pancreas donors available for the number of Type 1 people who could benefit from a transplant.
Why do these exciting finding always disappear (Score:3)
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Some examples?
Not a cure. A treatment. (Score:1)
T1 Diabetes Mellitus is a disease an autoimmune disease where if you have it, your immune system actively treats your insulin producing beta cells as a threat and kills them. If you replace those cells with more beta cells, your immune system will kill those too.
In 1922, Dr Banting and his research assistant, Best extracted the essence of islets in the pancreas and dubbed it 'insulin', then successfully treated a 14yo girl with diabetes and turned a guaranteed (within months of onset) fatal disease into a