Is there a Cure for Diabetes?
Currently there is no cure for diabetes, although there is treatment that can help people maintain normal lives. Some cases of diabetes may not respond as well to insulin treatment, as it does with other cases. Currently there is some treatment, which suggests a method for reducing the symptoms of diabetes and dependence on insulin.
Those who suffer from diabetes cannot produce their own insulin, and thus need to inject insulin in order to maintain healthy blood sugar levels in the body. In Type 1 diabetes, insulin is actually destroyed by the body. Many die prematurely and thus a cure for diabetes is desperately needed.
Insulin is carried in little cells called islets, and studies began to address whether donor islets might provide a cure for diabetes. For this purpose, the fist study on islet transplantation evaluated only two patients in New Zealand.
The islets used were from a porcine donor. The original results suggested the possibility of doing more tests on islet transplantation. Neither participant in the first test was able to completely end dependence on insulin. Thus the test did not suggest a cure for diabetes. However, the transplanted islets were less than the body would normally require, so islet transplantation still remained a possible cure for diabetes.
In 28 September 2006, The New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a more comprehensive study on the islet “cure” for diabetes. Islets were transplanted from deceased human donors, and the tests were conducted in several locations around the world on 36 patients.
In this test, which is still a small sampling of patients, after one year, 44% of patients were living independently of insulin. 28% had partially functioning islets and were able to reduce their insulin intake. 28% had no live graft islets at the end of one year.
The study continued for a year past this point, and the results point to a less than a cure for diabetes. Within two years 76% of the group required insulin. Only five of the initial 36 people tested were able to remain independent of insulin at the two-year mark.
Though the outcome is not a miracle cure for diabetes, it does suggest that insulin dependence might be reduced by islet transplantation in people with Type 1 Diabetes. The study did not examine people with Type 2 Diabetes.
Islet transplantation remains a treatment, not a cure for diabetes, unless scientists can recalculate the number of islets transplanted and make adjustments that would allow a greater amount of participants to become independent of insulin. No doubt, research will continue to progress along these lines, with perhaps greater numbers participating in such testing. As well, medical researchers continue to examine other possible methods like pancreas transplantation that might ultimately provide a cure for diabetes.
Written by Tricia Ellis-Christensen
