Politics
Monday November 13, 2006
Adult Stem Cells Offer Hope for Diabetes Treatment
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Gudrun Schultz
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, November 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Adult stem cells may soon be used to treat human diabetes, after a study by U.S. researchers showed the cells increased insulin production in mice with Type 2 diabetes, and may also have aided in kidney repair.
Researchers at the Tulane University in New Orleans injected human stem cells, taken from bone marrow samples obtained from adult donors, into diabetic mice with high blood sugar levels and kidney damage.
Tests after three weeks showed the mice who received the human stem cells had lowered blood sugar levels. The researchers found that the stem cells had traveled to each mouse’s pancreas and repaired insulin-producing tissues. The tissue produced mouse insulin, not human insulin, showing that the cells were highly adaptable to tissues in need of repair, Tulane University Magazine reported.
As well, the mice also showed evidence of some kidney repair, indicating the stem cells were capable of repairing damaged kidney tissue.
“We are not certain whether the kidneys improved because the blood sugar was lower or because the human cells were helping to repair the kidneys,” Dr. Darwin Prockop lead author of the study and director of the Tulane Center for Gene Therapy, told BBC News.
“But we suspect the human cells were repairing the kidneys in much the same way they were repairing the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.”
“The results provide new hope for treating diabetes and the severe effects it has on may organs,” said Dr. Prockop. Using human cells in preliminary studies on mice provides significant evidence that the therapy may be effective in treating human patients.
The research team hopes to collaborate with Tulane endocrinologist Vivian Fonseca in developing a clinical trial to test the therapy on humans with diabetes.
“The physicians will be selecting patients with diabetes whose kidneys are beginning to fail,” Dr. Prockop said. “They will determine whether giving the patients large numbers of their own adult stem cells will lower blood sugar, increase secretion of insulin from the pancreas and improve the function of the kidney.”
The study was published online this week in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
Read study published in PNAS: Human Liver Grown from Cord Blood Stem Cells--Media Ignores UK Breakthrough Adult Stem Cells Used to Treat Emergency Heart Attack Patients Success Stories with Adult Stem Cells Coming in Almost Too Fast to Track Adult Stem Cells used to Cure Blindness
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/0608249103v1
See related LifeSiteNews coverage:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/nov/06110105.html
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/nov/06110809.html
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jan/05012007.html
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/apr/05042907.html
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.