A 25-year-old Chinese woman is said to be living proof that type 1 diabetes can be cured. Responsible for this: the transplant of their ‘reprogrammed’ stem cells. “I can eat sugar now,” the woman told Nature magazine.
More than a year has passed since the transplant and she says: “I like to eat anything, especially stew. During the half-hour procedure, the body’s own cells were manipulated to act like islet cells.” It was possible to restore damaged pancreatic function in type 1 diabetes patients.
James Shapiro, a transplant surgeon and researcher at the University of Alberta in Canada, told the magazine that the results of the surgery were astonishing. “They have completely reversed the patient’s diabetes, which previously required significant amounts of insulin.”
The 25-year-old is considered recovered
The Chinese woman, who says she has been cured, is said to be the first type 1 diabetes patient to be successfully treated with her own body cells. It has now been over a year since the transplant and the research has now been published.
During the operation in June 2023, approximately 1.5 million islet cells were injected into the woman’s stomach, most of them in the liver. This ensured that the patient can produce insulin independently again and no longer experiences blood sugar peaks.
Stem cells can be used to grow the body’s own tissue and, according to Nature, can be grown indefinitely in the laboratory, meaning they potentially represent an unlimited source of pancreatic tissue. By using tissue made from the body’s own cells, researchers also hope to avoid the need for immunosuppressants.
Source: Krone
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