New Delhi: A 25-year-old woman with type-1 diabetes was successfully treated by scientists in China with her own stem cells. This is the first instance in the world where type 1 diabetes was reversed, as her cells started producing insulin on their own with stem cell therapy. A positive result was noticed just 75 days after the pancreatic stem cell transplant, according to a study published in the science journal Cell on 25 September.
This study explores the use of stem cells to treat diabetes, a condition that affects nearly 500 million people worldwide, including approximately 101 million in India. Most have type 2 diabetes, where the body either produces insufficient insulin or becomes resistant to its effects. In contrast, type 1 diabetes occurs when the immune system attacks the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas leading to failure in its production.
“I can eat sugar now,” said the woman in a statement to the peer-reviewed journal Nature. It’s been over a year since her transplant in June last year, and she particularly enjoyed indulging in the East Asian dish, hotpot, the woman said. Also read: India just saw 2nd hottest June-August period since 1970, 426 million exposed to week of risky heat A team of Chinese researchers extracted fat cells from three patients with type 1 diabetes and chemically altered them to become pluripotent—so that they could develop into any type of cell in the body.
This reprogramming also enabled the cells to respond to smal.
