posted 11/11/02
DENVER, Colo. -- Since the discovery of insulin in 1921, doctors have been searching for a cure for diabetes. After eighty years of research, they're closer than ever to finding it. Here's what is on the horizon.
Thirty-seven years with diabetes has taken its toll on Betsy Ray. She says, "I have retinopathy in my eyes. I have cataracts as well. I've got calcification of the heart. I've got kidney disease."
As a type 1 diabetic, Ray's body can't make insulin, a hormone necessary for survival.
"One of our dreams for treating type 1 diabetes and actually it might be useful for type 2 diabetes also is to replace the lost insulin-producing cells," diabetes researcher Gordon Weir, M.D., of Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, tells Ivanhoe.
Dr.
Weir says researchers are close to that dream. They're transplanting islet cells
-- the cells that make insulin. He says, "That 1 percent of the pancreas that
contains the insulin-producing cells is a very small volume of tissue, about
just the size of the end of my finger. If we could put that back into a person
with diabetes, then we could really get rid of diabetes."
The islet cell transplants are working. Doctors get most patients off insulin right away. About 75 percent are still insulin-free after a year, and when it works, it's essentially a cure. But not everyone who needs a transplant will get one.
"We'd be lucky to get 4,000 pancreases a year to use for transplantation. And every year there are about 35,000 new cases of type 1 diabetes. So the arithmetic just doesn't work," says Dr. Weir.
Hotly
debated stem cell transplants could solve that problem. Islet cells from pigs
are also possible.
Dr. Weir says if stem cell transplants and islet cell transplants become successful, they should get rid of almost all of diabetes.
In other research, immunologist Jeffrey Bluestone, Ph.D., says a specific antibody can stop disease progression when given to type 1 diabetics.
"In our study, the majority of the patients, 9 out of 12, ended up making more or equal amounts of insulin than they did at the start of the trial," Bluestone, of University of California, San Francisco, tells Ivanhoe.
The antibody must be given right after diagnosis. It helps preserve what's left of a patient's own insulin-producing cells.
"There is no reason why type 1 diabetes shouldn't be cured. So I hope I'm out of a job," says Bluestone.
Ray's
body no longer makes insulin, so the antibody won't help her. But she is on a
list for an islet cell transplant. She says, "I look at it as a way to perhaps
be a pioneer to help others. For purely selfish reasons, it's a way for me to
perhaps gain a little more longevity."
Many centers are participating in the islet cell transplant research in the United States and around the world.
Source: Ivanhoe Newswire.
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