It consumes one out of every eight U.S. health-care dollars. In March, University of Florida researchers reported that they had reversed diabetes in mice with a simple injection of islet cells that soon produced enough insulin to regulate blood sugar effectively. To do so, they harvested pancreatic cells in their earliest stages of development from the mice themselves, then nurtured them in the laboratory until they evolved into small, insulin-secreting islets of Langerhans. Islet transplants have been explored in diabetics since the early 1990s, however while insulin dependence has been achieved in these studies, it has been unsustainable. In addition, because the anti-rejection therapy has included glucocorticoids, many diabetic transplant recipients have suffered side effects.
Glucocorticoids are hormones that aid in carbohydrate processing.
An excess of them results in damaged sugar use by the body, causing a number of health problems including wounds that will not heal, frequent infection and excess weight. After islet transplantation, insulin therapy quickly became unnecessary. At the time of the most recent follow-up, all seven patients remained free of the need for insulin injections, there have been no episodes of acute cellular rejection, and none of the patients have died or experienced any serious side effects.