US researchers offer diabetes cure hope

Friday, February 07, 2014

A diabetes cure could be in sight after scientists transformed ordinary skin cells into pancreatic cells producing insulin.

By John von Radowitz

At the end of the process they created immature precursors to pancreatic beta cells, the bodys insulin factory.

When these cells were injected into mice genetically engineered to mimic symptoms of diabetes, the animals blood sugar levels returned to normal.

The US research is a major step forward in the hunt for a stem cell solution to Type 1 diabetes, caused by the bodys own immune system attacking and destroying insulin-making beta cells.

Type 1 diabetes is distinct from the much more common Type 2 version of the disease.

Type 1 diabetes usually strikes in childhood and dooms sufferers to a lifetime of self-administered insulin injections, without which their blood sugar would reach lethal levels.

Earlier attempts at using stem cells to replenish lost pancreatic beta cells have been largely disappointing.

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US researchers offer diabetes cure hope