Stem Cell Treatment May Cure Severe Type 1 Diabetes, Study Finds 18
A groundbreaking stem cell treatment developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals has allowed 10 out of 12 patients with severe type 1 diabetes to stop insulin therapy after one year. While the trial included some side effects and two unrelated deaths, the results mark a major step forward and have progressed to phase 3 clinical testing. ScienceAlert reports: The pancreas's islet cells are responsible for maintaining most of our bodies' insulin levels. Donor transplants of healthy versions of these cells have shown promise in treating type 1 diabetes in the past, but multiple donors are required, and donors are rare. So University of Toronto surgeon Trevor Reichman and colleagues infused 12 patients with islet cells derived from human stem cells in a treatment known as zimislecel. The patients also received immunosuppressive treatment before and after their zimislecel infusion. The islets not only produced insulin inside their bodies, but they did so at safe levels, reducing the patients' dependence on costly doses of insulin. "These findings showed that zimislecel islet cells were functional and self-regulated appropriately," the researchers write in their paper.
The mild to moderate side-effects, including decreased kidney function and the anticipated drop in immune cells, were all linked with the immunosuppressive therapy. Sadly, two additional participants died during the trial; one from an infection arising from surgery and the other from complications due to an unrelated condition. As there were no serious adverse events attributed to the new islet cell therapy, the clinical trials are have progressed into phase 3. "These findings provide evidence that pancreatic islets can be effectively produced from pluripotent stem cells and used to treat type 1 diabetes," Reichman and team conclude. The research has been published in the journal NEJM.
The mild to moderate side-effects, including decreased kidney function and the anticipated drop in immune cells, were all linked with the immunosuppressive therapy. Sadly, two additional participants died during the trial; one from an infection arising from surgery and the other from complications due to an unrelated condition. As there were no serious adverse events attributed to the new islet cell therapy, the clinical trials are have progressed into phase 3. "These findings provide evidence that pancreatic islets can be effectively produced from pluripotent stem cells and used to treat type 1 diabetes," Reichman and team conclude. The research has been published in the journal NEJM.
Duplicate (Score:5, Insightful)
We had this story before. So I'll just repeat my comment:
Better solutions are coming:
1. Encapsulated beta cells. No immunosuppressants needed. Immunosuppressants for life may be worse than diabetes because there are already good "artificial pancreas" systems (continuous glucose monitoring with a Dexcom G7 + a Tandem Insulin pump). The full solution though will be encapsulated beta cells.
Here are a couple of references about encapsulated beta cells tech that I mentioned:
A readable article that describes the technology in detail: https://advanced.onlinelibrary... [wiley.com]
Here's a couple articles about a couple of the companies (there are about 7, outside of academia) working on development and testing (which takes about a year or two per iteration to watch for failure etc.) of encapsulated beta cell technology:
Major company: https://pharmaphorum.com/news/... [pharmaphorum.com]
Startup: https://www.pharmavoice.com/ne... [pharmavoice.com]
The biggest challenge to making encapsulated beta cells work is how do we trick the body to engraft it without fibrosis (such that the encapsulated cells receive adequate blood/oxygen for the long term while not forming scar tissue around it). The process of figuring it out is highly iterative and takes months to know if it worked or not each time.
2. Another possible solution, as someone pointed out last time, are "tolerizing vaccines": https://www.cas.org/resources/... [cas.org]
Re: (Score:3)
That's type 2, this treatment is for type 1 which is genetic.
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It's not really type 2, either. Bad diet makes it worse, but isn't the cause.
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And, there's also LADA, which is just like Type I except it manifests in adults. That's what I have, and the root cause for it was exposu
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Stop being a retarded bigot and you won't be a retarded bigot.
Re: (Score:3)
Type 1 Diabetes is an Auto-Immune Disease. Unlike Type 2 Diabetes, it's unrelated to your weight or diet. Also, Type 2 Diabetes can also be caused by thyroid problems, not just poor diet and sedentary lifestyle.
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Is it possible to use the patients own stem cells? Would that solve the immunosuppressment problems?
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No, not without an inverse-vaccine. They got diabetes in the first place because their immune system attacked their own insulin-producing cells. Their immune system would have to be permanently modified so that it no longer attacks insulin producing cells.
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Once they master gene modification sufficiently to fix whatever genetic cause is behind it, very likely, yes.
And I suspect they're already working on that, but those things tend to be cause by multiple genes, and thus very complicated.
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The cells come from embryos, we will see how the religious bigots will take it anyway.
New drug: lose lots of fat and minimal muscle (Score:1)
https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/... [x.com]
Eli Lilly just showed that you can lose tons of fat while barely losing any muscle using their activin type-II receptor inhibitor, bimagrumab.
We are approaching a golden era of weight loss, where everyone can easily be muscular and skinny.
In fact, they can do it twice now! (Score:2)
Last option was a few days back.
Inserting Islets isn't a cure. (Score:2)
It's not good enough to insert new insulin-producing cells into a Diabetic's pancreas. That can be an effective treatment for Diabetes, but never a cure. It doesn't address the underlying cause. You have to fix the immune system, if you want to cure Type 1 Diabetes.
Organ Transplant (Score:2)
So it's effectively an organ transplant, only instead of using a donor organ, they use donor stem cells to grow the needed functionality in the recipient. That's a really cool technique, but it has all the rejection issues. Now if they could disable whatever caused the recipient's immune system to mess up their receptors in the first place, they could then use the recipient's own stem cells and eliminate all the immune suppression required for organ recipients, and it would be a real cure. This is one st