Stem cell transplant allows some patients with diabetes to go insulin-free
A transplant of blood stem cells in early onset diabetes seems to stop the immune system’s errant attacks on patients’ insulin-producing cells and so allow 20 of 23 patients to forego daily injections.
Read about the new JAMA study in Bloomberg. The work moves forward previous research on diabetic children carried out in Brazil.
The authors have previously reported using this system to stop errant immune attacks in an early study for multiple sclerosis. The strategy of the treatment is not to replace the tissue lost to the disease, but to stop the body from destroying itself.
