Stem Cell Therapy May Combat Type 1 Diabetes

Small trial offers hope, but much more research is needed, experts say.

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter
Tuesday, April 10, 2007; 12:00 AM

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TUESDAY, April 10 (HealthDay News) -- A pilot study of people newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes found that stem cell therapy eliminated the need for insulin therapy for varying periods of time.

This is the first trial to look at stem cell therapy in humans with this form of the disease. But experts stressed that the research is preliminary and urged caution when interpreting the results, which are published in the April 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"This may be the first step in something that could be promising, but I need to see a control group and longer follow-up before I'd go out on a limb," said Dr. Jay S. Skyler, author of an accompanying editorial in the journal and associate director of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. "But this is worthy of further experimentation."

Type 1 diabetes develops when the body's immune system attacks the pancreatic beta cells, which produce insulin -- the hormone that transports sugar from the blood to cells for energy.

"In type 1 diabetes, the immune system is out of balance," Skyler explained. "Ordinarily, all of us have some cells with the potential to destroy the pancreas, but the regulatory immune system prevents those cells from becoming sufficiently active. In type 1 (diabetes), there's a greater proportion of activity of the destroying cells and lesser activity of the regulatory cells. The goal is to try to bring that back into balance."

By the time a person is diagnosed with the disease, some 60 percent to 80 percent of the beta cells have already been destroyed. And people who have more functioning beta cells tend to have fewer complications down the line, research has shown.

Immunosuppression therapy, designed to dampen the immune system, can help, but these patients still need to take insulin to regulate their blood sugar. Meanwhile, stem cell therapy has had some success with other autoimmune diseases, such as lupus, but not with type 1 diabetes.