A new study finds that transplants of insulin-making cells, which reversed severe diabetes in an initial trial, have not lived up to their early promise.
The patients had severe Type 1 diabetes, also called juvenile diabetes, in which the body lacks insulin and people must inject it several times a day to control blood sugar. They were given islet cells from the pancreas of a dead organ donor.
Cell transplants are being studied primarily in people with Type 1 diabetes, which affects about a million people in the United States. It occurs when a person’s immune system, for unknown reasons, attacks the pancreas cells that make insulin.
Type 2 diabetes is different, and far more common, affecting about 20 million in the United States. Patients produce insulin, but their bodies cannot use it properly. The disease is genetic, but often develops only when someone who has the genes for it also becomes overweight. Type 2 is increasing in many countries as obesity rises. (Type 1 is not linked to obesity.)
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