Type One Diabetes: Another Treatment but Not a Cure

Type one diabetes occurs when the body’s own immune system attacks insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas. Without these cells the body can’t produce insulin and this hormone is required to break down blood-sugar into fuel which is used by the whole body. Prolonged periods of high blood sugar can lead to all sorts of vicious health concerns, from gangrene to blindness and eventually death. Those who’ve got type one diabetes are resigned to constant treatments of insulin to help manage their condition and constant monitoring of their blood-sugar levels to maintain their lifestyles. It’s a disease which can be lived with and one which doesn’t have to stop diabetics from doing anything but it’s also a condition which can never be forgotten on literal pain of death.

Researchers in Japan have found a way to successfully transplant adapted stem cells into the pancreas. For those who don’t know what they are, stem cells are ‘blank slate cells’ they’re unformed and for that reason can be stimulated to grow into almost any other cell in the body. The only issue with research and treatment using these cells is that they’re incredibly controversial because more often than not stem cells are taken from foetal tissue. Regardless, these Japanese scientists have shown that they can transplant newly formed and functioning insulin producing beta cells into a diabetics pancreas. This study is backed up by various others which have achieved the same thing.
Before you get out your party hat and start to celebrate this apparent cure, it’s important remember what I mentioned at the beginning of this article. The body kills healthy beta cells in type one diabetics, so put as many in as you want it doesn’t matter. The body will find them and kill them just like the original set

It’s good to hear there’s a solution to the symptoms and the damage but the initial cause of the disease is still unknown and until we discover it there’s no way of curing Diabetes.