In what’s been hailed as a world first, a group of scientists have reportedly cured a patient’s diabetes using stem cell therapy. The patient, age 59, had been living with type 2 diabetes for 25 years. The therapy restored his pancreatic function and freed him from needing external insulin.
But Dr Eric Westman, who posts reaction videos to medical news stories on his YouTube channel, argues that novel therapies such as this miss the point, which is that he sees patients’ diabetes go into remission all the time. And it doesn’t take advanced stem cell therapy to “cure” the condition.
59-year-old type 2 diabetes patient is ‘cured’ after stem cell therapy
In July 2021, a man who had been living with type 2 diabetes for 25 years underwent a stem cell transplant. He was treated by researchers at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, in China.
Previously, to stop himself from going into a diabetic coma, he had to inject insulin multiple times a day. However, just 11 weeks after the treatment, he was free of the need for external insulin. Gradually, he also stopped taking oral medication to control his blood sugar.
By the time the research made it into the academic journal Cell Discovery, he had been completely weaned off insulin for 33 months. That’s almost 3 years.
Diabetes UK quotes Timothy Kieffer, professor of cellular and physiological sciences at the University of British Columbia in Canada, as saying he thinks “this study represents an important advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes”.
“This therapy may free people from the burden of chronic medications, improve health and quality of life, and reduce healthcare expenditures.”
How is stem cell therapy different from other diabetes treatments?
First, we need to understand how diabetes affects the body. Diabetes is a chronic condition that impacts the way our bodies convert food into energy. We eat food. The body breaks it down into glucose. And that glucose finds its way to the bloodstream.
Islets in the pancreas produce insulin, which regulates blood sugar levels. Those with diabetes either don’t produce enough insulin, or are unable to effectively use the insulin they produce.
External insulin is an essential treatment for some. Others take metformin, which helps the insulin you produce to work better. This is usually a tablet. Insulin can be taken via syringe, pen, pump or inhaler.
The stem cell therapy these Chinese researchers used, on the other hand, harnesses the body’s own regenerative capabilities. It belongs to the field of regenerative medicine, which is relatively new. The team grew pancreatic tissue cells out of stem cells, in the lab, and inserted them into the man’s pancreas.
The new cells then embed themselves into the body’s tissue. If the transplant is successful, as it was in this case, they go on performing the function of pancreatic cells without the need for help.
But there are ways to ‘cure’ type 2 diabetes without expensive therapy
According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, “there isn’t a cure yet for diabetes”. The Chinese researchers believe they have found one.
Dr Eric Westman, who produces reaction videos on YouTube for his 200K subscribers, recognizes the achievement of the researchers but argues we already know how to “cure” type 2 diabetes. And to do so we don’t need expensive, high-tech therapies.
He emphasizes the power of dietary changes for their ability to reduce, or even eliminate, symptoms of diabetes. Diabetes UK’s top 10 tips for dietary management of diabetes include choosing healthier carbohydrates and cutting down on sugar.
“Remission of diabetes is one year of no evidence of diabetes. I see that routinely. Cure of diabetes is defined as five years with no evidence of diabetes, and I see that as well. These are standard definitions used.”
“So this isn’t the first time that diabetes has been ‘cured’,” he says. But it is the first time pancreatic function has been restored in such a way that allows patients to eat whatever they want.
