Stem Cell Therapy On The Way Of Destroying Diabetes From Its Roots
Diabetes is an unceasing and polygenetic disease affecting millions
of people around the world. If not controlled, it can lead to hyperglycemia,
which can damage many systems of human body proving fatal for the patient. Deaths
because of diabetes are expected to double as per the reports of health
organizations across the globe.
In both the types of diabetes,
pancreatic endocrine stem cells specifically the beta cells play a major role
in the disease’s progression. In type-1 of the disease, beta cells are
subjected to autoimmune obliteration, whereas in type-2 beta cells go through
many complicated changes and the mass of beta cells also diminish slowly.
Pancreas and islet transplant are
among the diabetes treatment
options that have been able to improve patient survival in many cases, but the
problem with this kind of diabetes treatment is the restricted supply of islets
and this has limited broader application of islet transplantation. This is
where stem cell therapy has emerged as a new hope for researchers as well as
patients. Researchers now use different stem cell types to overcome the
scarcity of islets.
Using stem cell therapy
researchers have found ways to make pancreatic beta cells from varied cells
such as embryonic cells, progenitor cells, non-pancreatic cells, and even
induced pluripotent cells. Cellular engineering and programming and replication
of beta cells are some of the other techniques that are expected to take
diabetes treatment to new heights.
In many cases, patients who have
been administered with stem cell therapy have witnessed improvement in their
condition even after a few months after the therapy. In some cases, patients
are given adipose cells in frequent intervals, especially for treatment of type-2
diabetes, as this helps in managing the symptoms of the disease and
aids in controlling level of blood sugar over a long period of time.
Recent research and advancements have
led to improved beta cell supply, which can help in future research and can
help pave the way for more effective and safer stem cell therapy for diabetes
treatment. Stem cells have not only come up as a treatment option for diseases
like diabetes, but it has helped to figure out and explore complicated was in
which human body process blood sugar and have also helped to understand how
diabetes happen and progresses in a patient overtime.
Recently developed techniques
like using cells from human skin and then reprogramming it to become induced
pluripotent cells have added to the potential of stem cell therapy and stem
cell research. A lot more research on immune cells and beta cells are underway
and are being tested in lab condition, so that they can be put to therapeutic
use for the benefit of millions of people affected with diabetes worldwide.
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