Stem cell transplants into sufferer of Type 1 diabetes have allowed patients to forego their traditional daily insulin injections and allowed volunteers to successfully go an average of two-and-a-half years free from needing to take their multiple, daily injections with which they usually manage their condition thanks to stem cell therapy.

Type 1 diabetes is a condition where a person’s immune system can very quickly destroy the cells that produce insulin found in the pancreas.

The stem cell transplants appear to work by effectively re-setting the immune system on order that the body will cease attacking the pancreas. According to the researchers involved in the study such a treatment can only successfully be undertaken when Type 1 diabetes is caught early in a patient, preferably within a six week window following diagnosis and before the pancreas suffers irreparable damage and before any complications set in as a result of elevated blood sugar levels.

A small study was undertaken included 23 patients that had been recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

The patients involved in the study were aged between 13 and 31 years old with an average age of just over 18. The majority of the patients were men who had suffered for a relatively short duration from the disease free of diabetic ketoacidosis – a condition that is dangerous complication linked to Type 1 diabetes.

The findings showed that 20 patients, became insulin and injection free, and of all involved a total of twelve patients stayed insulin-free for an average of thirty-one months. Eight patients, however, suffered relapses and needed to resume taking insulin at low doses.

As the results are good but still we can say that this study indicate that further research definitely needs to be done into the process as well as highlights the fact that there will undoubtedly need to be further work done among people of different ethnicities and among women and to make this treatment more successful for all the patients.