Stem cells from cord blood "re-educated" the immune system T cells of people with type 1 diabetes so their pancreas started producing insulin again, thereby reducing the amount of insulin they needed to inject.
Type one diabetes develops when the body's own immune process assaults & destroys the insulin-producing islet beta cells in the pancreas. As a result, the body cannot make insulin, causing blood glucose to reach hazardous levels & destroy all the organs in the body.
In their background information, the researchers note that tests on mice & cells of patients with diabetes have shown that multipotent cells derived from cord blood "can control autoimmune responses by altering regulatory T cells (Tregs) & human islet beta cell-specific T cell clones".
In their paper the researchers report how they developed a procedure they called "Stem Cell Educator therapy" where the diabetic patient's blood is circulated through a closed-loop process that separates lymphocytes (a class of immune cell that includes T cells) from the whole blood & co-cultures them with cord blood stem cells from healthy donors for to hours before returning the "re-educated lymphocytes" to the patient's circulation.
Cord blood is blood that is collected from the placenta & umbilical cord after childbirth. It is a rich source of stem cells that can treat a range of blood & genetic disorders.
All but of the patients (the controls) underwent Stem Cell Educator therapy one time. The controls underwent a sham treatment where they received no educated cells.
For this small, open-label, phase1/phase two study they recruited 15 patients with type one diabetes aged from 15 to 41 years (median 29) with a diabetic history ranging from one to 21 years (median 8).
The researchers checked the patients' progress 4, 12, 24 and 40 weeks after therapy. Six of the patients who had the therapy had some residual beta cell function (moderate type 1 diabetes) and the other six had no residual beta cell function (severe type 1 diabetes).
Diabetes - is a group of metabolic diseases in which a person has high blood sugar, either because the body does not produce enough insulin, or because cells do not respond to the insulin that is produced. This high blood sugar produces the classical symptoms of polyuria (frequent urination), polydipsia (increased thirst) and polyphagia (increased hunger).
