I saw this on the 5pm news tonight but didn't catch all of it, so I looked
it up and thought I would share it with the group.
Thankfully there seems to be some sort of a end in sight... hopefully if we
can get stem cell studies allowed here in the
US, LOL yeah right... 2008 can't come FAST enough for me... Enjoy reading..

---------------------
Apr 10, 4:03 PM EDT

Treatment shows promise against diabetes
By LINDSEY TANNER
AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO (AP) -- Thirteen young diabetics in Brazil have ditched their
insulin shots and need no other medication thanks to a risky, but promising
treatment with their own stem cells - apparently the first time such a feat
has been accomplished.   Though too early to call it a cure, the procedure
has enabled the young people, who have Type I diabetes, to live
insulin-free so far, some as long as three years. The treatment involves
stem cell transplants from the patients' own blood.   "It's the first time
in the history of Type 1 diabetes where people have gone with no treatment
whatsoever ... no medications at all, with normal blood sugars," said study
co-author Dr. Richard Burt of Northwestern University's medical school in
Chicago.

While the procedure can be potentially life-threatening, none of the 15
patients in the study died or suffered lasting side effects. But it didn't
work for two of them.
Larger, more rigorous studies are needed to determine if stem cell
transplants could become standard treatment for people with the disease
once called juvenile diabetes. It is less common than Type 2 diabetes,
which is associated with obesity. <-- (I didn't say this Cheri.. the news
ppl did!)

The hazards of stem cell transplantation also raise questions about whether
the study should have included children. One patient was as young as 14.
Dr. Lainie Ross, a medical ethicist at the University of Chicago, said the
researchers should have studied adults first before exposing young teens to
the potential harms of stem cell transplant, which include infertility and
late-onset cancers.

In addition, Ross said that the study should have had a comparison group to
make sure the treatment was indeed better than standard diabetes care.
Burt, who wrote the study protocol, said the research was done in Brazil
because U.S. doctors were not interested in the approach. The study was
approved by ethics committees in Brazil, he said, adding that he personally
believes it was appropriate to do the research in children as well as
adults, as long as the Brazilian ethics panels approved.

Burt and other diabetes experts called the results an important step
forward.  "It's the threshold of a very promising time for the field," said
Dr. Jay Skyler of the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of
Miami.  Skyler wrote an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical
Association, which published the study, saying the results are likely to
stimulate research that may lead to methods of preventing or reversing Type
I diabetes.

"These are exciting results. They look impressive," said Dr. Gordon Weir of
Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
Still, Weir cautioned that more studies are needed to make sure the
treatment works and is safe. "It's really too early to suggest to people
that this is a cure," he said.

The patients involved were ages 14 to 31 and newly diagnosed with Type 1
diabetes. An estimated 12 million to 24 million people worldwide -
including 1 to 2 million in the United States - have this form of diabetes,
which is typically diagnosed in children or young adults. An autoimmune
disease, it occurs when the body attacks insulin-producing cells in the
pancreas.

Insulin is needed to regulate blood sugar levels, which when too high, can
lead to heart disease, blindness, nerve problems and kidney damage.
Burt said the stem cell transplant is designed to stop the body's immune
attack on the pancreas.

A study published last year described a different kind of experimental
transplant, using pancreas cells from donated cadavers, that enabled a few
diabetics to give up insulin shots. But that requires lifelong use of
anti-rejection medicine, which isn't needed by the Brazil patients since
the stem cells were their own.
The 15 diabetics were treated at a bone marrow center at the University of
Sao Paulo.

All were newly diagnosed, before their insulin-producing cells had been
destroyed.

That timing is key, Burt said. "If you wait too long," he said, "you've
exceeded the body's ability to repair itself."

The procedure involves stimulating the body to produce new stem cells and
harvesting them from the patient's blood. Next comes several days of
high-dose chemotherapy, which virtually shuts down the patient's immune
system and stops destruction of the few remaining insulin-producing cells
in the body. This requires hospitalization and potent drugs to fend off
infection. The harvested stem cells, when injected back into the body,
build a new healthier immune system that does not attack the
insulin-producing cells.

Patients were hospitalized for about three weeks. Many had side effects
including nausea, vomiting and hair loss. One developed pneumonia, the only
severe complication.   Doctors changed the drug regimen after the treatment
failed in the first patient, who ended up needing more insulin than before
the study. Another patient also relapsed.  The remaining 13 "live a normal
life without taking insulin," said study co-author Dr. Julio Voltarelli of
the University of Sao Paulo. "They all went back to their lives."  The
patients enrolled in the study at different times so the length of time
they've been insulin-free also differs.
Burt has had some success using the same procedure in 170 patients with
other autoimmune diseases, including lupus and multiple sclerosis; one
patient with an autoimmune form of blindness can now see, Burt said.

"The body has tremendous potential to repair," he said.

The study was partly funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Health, Genzyme
Corp. and a maker of blood sugar monitoring products.

---
AP reporter Carla K. Johnson in Chicago contributed to this report.
---
On the Net:
JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org
Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation: http://www.jdrf.org
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DIABETES_EXPERIMENT?SITE=OKOKL&SECTION=HO
ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT