Stem cell therapy is getting acceptance everywhere in the world. Now the therapy is gaining its importance, in the treatment of diabetes, especially for the type 1 diabetes (IDDM).
It can be added that as many as three million Americans may be living with type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults and was previously known as juvenile diabetes.The disease causes the body to stop producing insulin, a hormone that converts sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life and it can lead to various problems like heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, nerve damage, foot complications and skin problems.
Current therapies for type 1 diabetes involve delivering insulin to the bloodstream. However, the new parents have a choice when their child is born: they can either bank or discard their newborn´´s umbilical cord blood. After a baby is born and the umbilical cord is cut, some blood remains in the blood vessels of the placenta and the portion of the umbilical cord still attached to it. The cord blood contains all of the normal elements of blood: red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma; however, it is also rich in blood-forming stem cells similar to those found in bone marrow.
Researchers from the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, Fla., are the first to experiment with cord blood infusions as a treatment for children with type 1 diabetes. The investigators received the idea in part from a patient´s father who had read scientists elsewhere were able to reverse diabetes in mice by taking bone marrow from an animal and infusing it into its identical sibling without using chemotherapy or radiation. In the lab, scientists were able to coax stem cells from cord blood into making insulin.
For the study, researchers identified children recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes whose families had banked their cord blood at birth. Most of the participants were still producing a small amount of insulin. The researchers then gave patients intravenous infusions of stem cells isolated from their own cord blood. In the first six months, patients given the infusions required less insulin: on average, 0.45 versus 0.69 units of insulin per kilogram per day.
The experimental treatment is not a cure, but it is a significant step toward a better understanding of the disease. In the future, researchers hope they can intervene and repair early damage during the "honeymoon period" ¡ª the first several months after diagnosis when insulin needs are minimal. They hope the cord blood treatment will eventually become part of a combination therapy approach to treating the disease. The study was funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. |
