(ChattahBox)—A recent study published in the Journal of Cell Transplantation, offers new hope to the 24 million people in the US who suffer from type 2 diabetes and its harmful affects. The University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute, is conducting its first phase of human clinical trials, using immature adult stem cells from a patient’s own bone marrow. After treatment, symptoms significantly lessened, with increased insulin production, lower blood-sugar levels and a reduced need for those dreaded insulin injections.
University researchers conducted the successful pilot study with 25 sufferers of type 2 diabetes. Once they removed the stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow, it was purified and concentrated, and then injected into arteries near the pancreas. The pancreas is responsible for producing the insulin our bodies need.
The next phase of the novel treatment is right out of science fiction. The patients were enclosed in hyperbaric oxygen capsules for 10 hours, blasting their bodies with pure oxygen, at more than twice the amount of normal levels. The hyperbaric chambers are similar to ones used to treat divers with the “bends.”
Researchers found that the high levels of pure oxygen drew additional stem cells from the bone marrow, which joined up with the new cells injected near the pancreas, renewing the pancreas’ ability to make insulin on its own. Research director, Dr. Camillo Ricordi, believes this groundbreaking new treatment could eventually lead to wiping out type 2 diabetes. At the very least, it can ease the painful symptoms and the serious complications of type 2 diabetes.
The University of Miami is expanding its study to the countries of Argentina, Sweden and research centers in Asia. Over the next four years of further clinical trials, researchers are hopeful of obtaining FDA approval to offer the experimental treatment to more patients.
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