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How stem cells treat diabetes is an ever continuing subject for scientific research and demonstrates great promise.

How stem cells treat diabetes is an ever ongoing subject for medical research and indicates great promise. The University of Pennsylvania is now doing clinical studies for a new surgery referred to as Islet Cell Transplantation.

The new method entails transplanting islet cells from a matching donor. Beta islet cells are classified as the cells from the pancreas that exude insulin. The procedure is for Type 1 diabetics whose Beta islet cells have already been destroyed and thus no insulin is manufactured. These patients need to be on insulin therapy for the rest of their lives. Since the cells are transplanted into the liver, the body right after the first transplant can give indicators when the blood sugar is too low. Many Type 1 diabetics don’t have any warning and quite often just black out which is often harmful when traveling or performing other critical tasks diabetes for life.

Islet cell transplantation cannot treat most cases of Type 2 diabetes but is a possible remedy for the over 700,000 people in the United States that have Type 1 diabetes. But, at present there aren’t enough donors to serve with only about 3,500 donor organs available last year. Most patients presently need 2 transplantations to get totally off insulin therapy.

The answer to this problem is to create islets in the lab using stems cells. There is presently research occurring using dubious embryonic stem cells as well as stem cells taken from adults. But because of the ethical and political debate with regards to stem cells this road to a cure is heading slowly. People who believe life starts at conception strongly fight embryonic stem cell research as the cells originate from human embryos that are destroyed in the act. Embryonic stem cells have not grown up into human cells and have the greatest possibility to become any kind of cells in the body, such as hair, skin, blood, toenail etc.

Oppositions to this research feel that adult stem cells taken from adult bone marrow is the solution to this problem. But you can find studies which raise queries about the ability of these cells as remedies.

An up to date published study noted that an intestinal hormone caused stem cells extracted from a pancreas to turn into islet cells that produce insulin – they’re called beta cells, but there is debate over this research and it has not been able to be duplicated.

Even though the research making use of stem cells is in its infant stages lots of scientists think that this research holds the most promise for achievement for diabetics as a way to quit taking insulin injection immediately after their own bodies start producing the hormone naturally .

How stem cells treat diabetes is undoubtedly an ever continuing topic for medical research and displays great promise in the battle to find a remedy for this serious disease.