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UK Doctors Cure Type 1 Diabetes

Posted by timothy on from the that's-what-they-tell-you-anyway dept.

ayden writes "The BBC is reporting that a 61-year-old man has become the first person in the UK to be cured of type 1 diabetes thanks to a groundbreaking cell-transplant technique. More info here."

4 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Good news! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    From someone who has both parents being diabetic, this is great news.

    1. Re:Good news! by hubs99 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If you are at risk for developing diabetes then you probably have diabetes type 2 in your family, not type 1 which this would cure. Type 2 can be different because although your body is still producing insulin, your body's cells are effectively ignoring it. As for you question. The reason of the shortage is for a multitude of reasons. One being the lack of organ donors, and of those donors those that will match perfectly enough for the stem cells to becmoe integrated. Also if a pancrease has on the orders of millions of cells I would suspect that only a few hundred of them are of the stem cell derivative hence the shortage. Just a postulation. Justin

  2. The only drawback by SimianOverlord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is the anti-rejection drug regime. It can cause problems down the line with side-effects and with the immune system somewhat compromised, a susceptibility to infection.

    If stem cell research continues at the rate it does, even this will be solved when cord blood stored at the patients birth is encouraged to differentiate into Eyelet cells, injected back into the patient years later and begin producing insulin. No rejection problems with your own-tissue-derived cells.

    Also, this, as far as I am aware, will not help with Insulin-independent diabetic conditions.

    USians, consider writing to your senator to protest Bush policies on Stem cell research. I'm not having a pop at him - fair enough if it's a moral issue to some folks. Just register your opinion with them. It can't hurt.

    --
    Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
  3. Re:Coca-cola: Toilet bowl cleaner! by ikkonoishi · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My brother in law used to work at a pepsi plant. They used the diet mountain dew concentrate as floor cleaner. They had to be careful not to let it sit in one place for too long or it would eat a hole in the floor.