Health
Chinese Patient Cured of Diabetes After 25 Years
Chinese doctors have successfully cured a 59-year-old man of type 2 diabetes for the first time using stem cell therapy, marking a groundbreaking medical achievement. The patient, who had been living with diabetes for 25 years and was dependent on multiple daily insulin injections, underwent a transplant in July 2021 at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital.
The doctors used the patient’s own peripheral blood mononuclear cells and reprogrammed them into induced pluripotent stem cells. These stem cells were then transformed into “seed cells” and reconstituted into pancreatic islet tissue in an artificial environment. The newly created islet cells were transplanted into the patient.
Eleven weeks after the transplant, the patient was able to stop taking external insulin injections. Within a year, he was gradually weaned off all oral diabetes medications. Follow-up examinations showed that the patient’s pancreatic islet function was effectively restored, and he has remained insulin-free for 33 months as of June 2024.
This breakthrough represents the first reported case of a cure for diabetes using stem cell-derived islet transplantation. It offers hope for millions of diabetes patients worldwide who currently rely on lifelong insulin injections and medications to manage their condition.
Professor Timothy Kieffer from the University of British Columbia praised the study as “an important advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes.” However, further research is needed to validate the findings and scale up the treatment for wider application.