Insulin Stem Cells Hold Hope for Diabetes Treatment

In study with mice, they also repaired damage to kidneys

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

Related Encyclopedia • Addison's Disease • Carcinoid Syndrome • Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia • Cushing's Syndrome More... Related Healthscout Videos Hope for Diabetes and Lou Gehrig's Preventing Type 1 Diabetes Medicine's Next Big Thing? Diabetes Discoveries Continuous Glucose Monitoring System More... Related Animations • Diabetes More... Related Drug Information • Actonel • Actos • Amaryl • Avandamet More... Related News Articles • Health Tip: Insulin Shots • Pancreas May Be Key to Pregnancy-Linked Diabetes • Adults With Diabetes Doing Better Prevention Job • Most Americans Have Poor 'Eye-Q' More...

TUESDAY, Nov. 7 (HealthDay News) -- Stem cells might one day pack a one-two punch when it comes to treating people with diabetes.

In a new study conducted with diabetic mice, human stem cells not only repaired insulin-producing cells in the rodents, they also fixed cells in damaged kidneys.

Text Continues Below

---

"It looks like we are doing two things, lowering blood sugar and sending cells to the kidney," said study senior author Dr. Darwin Prockop, director of the Center for Gene Therapy at Tulane University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. "That's very exciting because there are about 8 million people out there with diabetes and kidney damage and nothing to offer in the way of treatment," Prockop added.

"It's an interesting, novel finding, although obviously some more work needs to be done," added Dr. Rohit N. Kulkarni, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and head of his own lab in the section on cellular and molecular physiology at the Joslin Diabetes Center, both in Boston. "We are still many steps from figuring out what's happening in humans, but this is one step towards realizing the goal of trying to figure out what stem cells do."

Mesenchymal stem cells or multipotent stromal cells (MSCs) hold quite a bit of promise because they are easily obtained from a patient's bone marrow, grow readily in culture and present minimal immune-system difficulties, the researchers said.

"We're calling them adult stem or progenitor cells. They're not quite entirely stem cells but close to it," Prockop said. "They have a remarkable ability to heal tissues."

"They're part of a natural repair system. Everyone has these cells, but we develop diseases when we don't have enough," he continued. "We can make millions in the laboratory in a matter of three weeks. They speed up the whole repair process."

Page:  1 | 2 | Next >>