Diabetes treatment: stop the autoimmune process
American and Brazilian researchers have managed to rid patients with type 1 diabetes of insulin dependence with the help of a kind of "reset" of the immune system.
A joint study by scientists from Northwestern University in Chicago, Illinois, USA, and the Regional Blood Center in Ribeiran Preto, Sao Paulo State, Brazil, involved 23 people with type 1 diabetes mellitus undergoing insulin replacement therapy.
First, bone marrow stem cells were taken from patients and preserved. Then, with the help of chemotherapy, all the patients' immune cells were destroyed in order to cleanse the body of their population that attacks the islet cells of the pancreas that produce insulin (this process is the basis of type 1 diabetes). After that, the immune system was restored with canned stem cells.
The positive effect of the treatment was achieved in 20 participants of the experiment. 12 patients still do not need insulin injections, while one of them underwent a "reset" of immunity five years ago, four – three years, three – two years, and the rest – a year ago. The rest had to resume taking insulin after a while, but in much smaller doses than before treatment. Two of them were able to get rid of insulin dependence after prescribing the sugar-lowering drug sitagliptin. Treatment did not help three patients. In nine participants of the experiment, it was complicated by a decrease in the concentration of sperm in the ejaculate.
When the preliminary results of the study were published in 2007, some scientists criticized them, arguing that the improvement in patients could have occurred due to the appointment of chemotherapy or simply because of better medical supervision during clinical trials. The researchers refuted these arguments by the fact that all participants in the experiment after treatment had a persistent increase in the concentration of C-reactive protein in the blood, which is one of the products of insulin synthesis reactions.
Copper news based on the materials of New Scientis: Stem cells free diabetes from insulin treatmentPortal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru