Stem Cell Therapy

In the United States, an estimated 30.3 million people have diabetes, which is roughly 9.4-10% of the entire US population.

Diabetes is a disease that affects insulin production in the body, which in turn, allows our cells to absorb glucose and keep out blood glucose, or blood sugar, levels healthy.

There are two common types of diabetes. In Type 1 Diabetes, the body doesn't produce any insulin because the immune system attacks beta cells in the pancreas which are responsible for insulin release, and in Type 2 Diabetes, the body does produce insulin, but the insulin it does produce cannot be utilized by the body due to insulin resistance, possibly because of dysfunctional beta cells. Type 2 Diabetes can usually be prevented with a healthy lifestyle, but Type 1 is genetic.

Having diabetes can lead to a wide variety of other health problems if it is not managed properly, including heart disease, kidney disease, and nerve damage.

 

The good news is that scientists are working on ways to use stem cells to treat diabetes. Researchers are looking at ways to restore the number of functional beta cells in patients with diabetes, pursuing both the replacement of lost or damaged beta cells and the protection of beta cells from further damage. 

Certain approaches to this include attempting to make the beta cells replicate with more speed and efficiency, because they naturally reproduce very slowly. Another approach is to make beta cells from embryonic or iPS stem cells, since they can be grown in large numbers in laboratory settings and have the potential to differentiate into many cells, including beta cells.

In order for these to work, however, the immune system would have to stop attacking beta cells. There are some trials in progress to test whether blood stem cells from bone marrow may alter the immune system so that it doesn't attack beta cells anymore.