Diabetes: Say no to needles with new stem cell treatment!

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: A ray of hope for Type 1 diabetes patients. US researchers have invented a new treatment for that can provide relief from painful insulin shots to the people with Type 1 diabetes.

As per the research done at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University, scientists have succeeded in converting stem cells of Type 1 diabetic patients into new insulin secreting 'beta cells'.

This findings represents a personalized approach of treating patients' with their own tissues. Such method will significantly reduce the risk of immune reaction.

Type 1 diabetes also known as juvenile diabetes usually strikes in childhood. Patients with this form of diabetes can't make their own insulin due to lack of pancreatic cells. They have to rely on painful insulin injections in order to maintain their blood sugar and process food.

The study published in Nature Communications showed that the newly formed cells could produce insulin when they encountered sugar.

Scientists claimed that stem cell-derived beta cells could be ready for human research in three to five years.

(With ANI inputs)