I was thinking about treatment using the patient’s own stem cells as in Germany at the XCell center. I know that some research by Dr. Vina in Brazil has lead to type 2 diabetics becoming insulin free. Do you think stem cell therapy with the patient’s own stem cells injected into the pancreas could be beneficial or do you believe that the body’s own immunity would target these cells if they developed into islets?

It is fantastic research, but still too soon for wide application, and very expensive. One major problem is just as you asked – the body attacking its own cells once again and, so, using stem cells may help prevent such problems. But, the key will be to get the stem cells to no longer be identified as foreign so the autoimmune attack does not occur and to work correctly to make insulin only when needed and not like a tumor would do in an uncontrolled fashion. The same for growth of these transplanted cells. Much money, work and research efforts are still needed, but only if we can all convince our government to allow such funding to occur and such research to take place in a proper scientific fashion. Current federal government bans most such research, unfortunately.

SB