Diabetes is one of the diseases that cannot be treated. Patients need to maintain lifelong nutrition to avoid complications and the condition becoming more serious. There are two types of diabetes and a group of researchers from Shanghai Changzheng Hospital announced they have successfully cured a type 2 diabetic patient using stem cell treatment.
A 59-year-old patient with diabetes for 25 years received a pancreatic stem cell transplant in 2021. After just 11 weeks, he no longer needed insulin injections. A year later, he no longer needed pills to control his blood sugar. This is the first incident in history of a type 2 diabetic patient being fully recovered.
This research paper on the treatment of diabetes using stem cells has been published in the Cell Discovery journal and is the result of a decade of research. Researchers now say more studies need to be done to see the long-term effectiveness of this treatment before it is used more widely.
Treatment for type 2 diabetes appeared in China is not accidental because it is a country that accounts for up to 25% of the global number of patients. The use of stem cells to treat diabetes is also not a new innovation. In 2021, Brian Shelton from the United States was the first human to recover from type one diabetes using a stem cell treatment developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals.