Dear Friends,

May I request you to go through the latest news "A team of doctors in
Argentina has pioneered a new technique for treating diabetes using
adult stem cells that could represent a breakthrough in confronting
this chronic disease" which can be viewed through link
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=26996.

I think; we can't ignore these facts that :-

1. The experiment was on a TYPE-2 patient on 3rd January 2005.

2. Result shows that the pancreas began to produce insulin again, NOT
IN THE NORMAL AMOUNT, BUT AT THE LEVELS OF A TYPE-2 DIABETES PATIENT.

3. As per Dr. Jorge Saslavsky, the head of the Medical Team, they
doesn't know how long the benefits of the treatment will last.

4. THEY ALSO DOSEN'T KNOW THAT IF THE PROCEDURE WILL VE EFFECTIVE IN
TYPE-1 INSULIN DEPENDENT DIABETICS.

5. They have yet to publish their results in Scientific Journels as it
require a large number of test cases and more time to observe the effects.

6. THEY HAVE NOT CONSIDERED PATENTING THE PROCEDURE as the technique
is not novel enough to patent.

7. The next phase of research, being funded by a private foundation at
a cost of US$1,600 per treatment, will commence February 1.

8. In phase two, 35 patients between the ages of 22 and 65 will be
selected from among 500 volunteers who have already stepped up and
offered to undergo the treatment.

May I request you for your comments please.

Regards,

Prakashbhai Thakrar
(Shortcut URLs :
http://www.lohanaonline.com/achievers/achievers_ravi.asp
http://www.talkabouthealthnetwork.com/group/misc.health.diabetes/messages/304170\
.html
http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/homoeo_life/message/99
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-glibc/2004-10/msg00036.html
http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/oct2004/msg00283.html
http://www.mumbai-central.com/nukkad/nov2004/msg00061.html
http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/images/gallery/Raviraj.htm
http://www.chatabouthealth.com/ACHIEVEMENT_OF_A_DIABETIC_CHILD_WHO_TAKES_INSULIN\
_INJECTIONS_TWIC-5558537-467-a.html
Ex Corps of Military Police (Indian Army)
Member, Rajya Sainik Board Committee, Gujarat State
Vice President, Shri Rajkot Maji Sainik Co-Op. Housing Soc. Ltd.,
Rajkot
Insurance Advisor, LIC of India
General Manager, Shri Bhuvaneshwari Pith, Gondal
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http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=26996
==============================================================
ARGENTINA:
Breakthrough in Treating Diabetes with Adult Stem Cells

Marcela Valente


BUENOS AIRES, Jan 11 (IPS) - A team of doctors in Argentina has
pioneered a new technique for treating diabetes using adult stem cells
that could represent a breakthrough in confronting this chronic disease.

Dr. Jorge Saslavsky, the head of the medical team, told IPS that the
experiment involved the injection of adult stem cells into a diabetic
patient, using stem cells harvested from the patient himself.

It was the first time that the procedure had been used to treat
diabetes, and the doctors confirmed that the patient's pancreas, which
had ceased to produce insulin, began to function again as a result of
the treatment.

The medical team participating in this groundbreaking experiment was
made up of cardiologists, haematologists, radiologists and other
specialists from the Sán Nicolás Clinic in the eastern Argentine
province of Buenos Aires and the Bone Marrow Transplant Centre in
Rosario, in the neighbouring province of Santa Fe.

The team has been using the same procedure for some time now to treat
victims of heart attacks, injecting stem cells into the damaged heart
tissue to promote recovery. Earlier this month, they used the
technique for the first time on a diabetic patient.

Diabetes is a chronic illness with two forms, known as Type 1 and Type
2. In Type 1 diabetes, the patient's pancreas produces very little or
no insulin, and they are dependent on artificial insulin, usually in
the form of daily injections, to maintain the proper level of blood
glucose (also known as blood sugar).

In Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas continue to produce insulin, but the
body's tissues are unable to use it properly. In response, the
pancreas produce more insulin as a means of compensating. While
medication can often be used to treat this insulin resistance, there
are cases where the deterioration of the pancreas can lead to Type 1
diabetes and insulin dependence.

The patient chosen for the first clinical trial was a 42-year-old
Argentine man suffering from Type 2 diabetes who had stopped producing
insulin, said Saslavsky.

The doctors began by extracting bone marrow in a procedure that
required 10 minutes of general anaesthesia. The stem cells were
harvested from the marrow and injected through a catheter into the
pancreas, with no need for surgery.

The entire procedure was carried out in a single day. The bone marrow
was extracted in the morning, and the stem cells were injected during
a two-hour process later in the day. "That evening, the patient walked
out of the hospital," Saslavsky said.

In preliminary control studies, the doctors observed that the pancreas
began to produce insulin again, not in the normal amount, but at the
levels of a Type 2 diabetes patient.

"In this case, we did not expect the patient to be cured, but rather
to improve to the point of a diabetic who can be successfully treated
with medication," Saslavsky explained.

The results of this pioneering experiment have opened up a whole new
world of possibilities for the treatment of the disease.

The research team does not know how long the benefits of the injection
will last, or if the procedure will be effective in Type I or
insulin-dependent diabetics. "We still haven't tried it," noted Saslavsky.

However, he stressed, the procedure is an extremely simple one that
requires nothing more than the patient's consent, and has no
potentially negative side effects. "The worst that can happen is that
it doesn't have any beneficial effect, but it is completely harmless,"
he said.

As of now, the doctors have yet to publish their results in scientific
journals, and have not considered patenting the procedure. Publication
would require a larger number of test cases and more time to observe
the effects, and the technique is not novel enough to patent.

"We combined various techniques that have been used in the past for
other purposes," Saslavsky said. At the San Nicolás Clinic alone, stem
cells have been injected into the hearts of close to 100 patients who
have suffered heart attacks.

Stem cells can transform themselves into any kind of cell in the human
body, including neurons or brain cells, which is why this field of
medical research offers such enormous potential.

There are two types of stem cells. Embryonic stem cells are harvested
from embryos created through in vitro fertilisation, while adult stem
cells are readily available in sources like the pancreas and brain,
although they are most easily harvested from bone marrow.

Stem cells do not age, and can be used to regenerate tissue and organs
even in elderly patients. "When patients are old, they have fewer stem
cells, but the quality of the cells does not change," said Saslavsky.

Embryonic stem cell research has generated enormous expectations in
the medical community, he noted, but because the process used to
harvest the cells kills the embryo, it has become an extremely
controversial issue, which makes the advances achieved with adult stem
cells even more significant.

Nevertheless, there has been a far greater emphasis worldwide on
embryonic stem cell research as opposed to adult stem cell research,
and Saslavsky believes the reason could be economic. Because the
procedures involved in embryonic stem cell research are far more
complicated, they can attract greater funding for laboratories, while
resulting treatments would be more costly as well.

By contrast, the procedure for using adult stem cells from the same
patient is much simpler and thus far less expensive, as it is limited
to the cost of the catheters used to extract the bone marrow and
inject the stem cells and the reagents needed to harvest them.

Moreover, even if there were an easier, less costly way of cultivating
embryonic stem cells, there would still be the risk of rejection,
since they would have a different genetic composition than that of the
recipient.

In the past, there have been cases of diabetics receiving treatment in
the form of grafts of pancreatic tissue from recently deceased donors,
but the technique is risky precisely because of the potential for
rejection, Saslavsky noted.

"What is completely novel about this technique is that the stem cells
come from the patients themselves, which means there is no danger of
rejection and resulting damage to the pancreas," he said.

The progress observed in the subject of this groundbreaking
experiment, who remains anonymous, could provide a key to combating
diabetes, which is a leading cause of death in many countries. (END/2005)
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http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/health/view/128595/1/.html
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Health News »

A vaccine injection

Time is GMT + 8 hours
Posted: 22 January 2005 1039 hrs

Stem cell treatment reverses diabetes: researchers

BUENOS AIRES : Millions of diabetics worldwide could put insulin
injections behind them if a stem cell treatment that Argentine
physicians have successfully used to reverse the disease confirms
promising early results.

The treatment, in which stem cells are injected into the pancreas,
does not involve risks of rejection, requires no prolonged inpatient
treatment, and any physician trained in and skilled with
catheterization could perform it, cardiologist Roberto Fernandez Vina
told AFP.

Fernandez Vina leads the team that successfully carried out the first
implant of its kind January 3 on an insulin-dependent diabetic patient
at San Nicolas Hospital in the town of San Nicolas, north of Buenos
Aires.

The 42-year-old man, who had been insulin dependent since the age of
25, so far has seen his glucose levels return to normal with no need
for medication.

The treatment involves extracting stem cells from the ilium, a bone in
the hip, and after manipulating them in the laboratory, injecting them
into the pancreas using a special catheter introduced through the
femoral artery, which provides a direct route to the "tail" of the
pancreas.

"It is an unprecedented technique, because it uses stem cells and not
embryonic ones, as had been done previously, and because of the path
of injection, since we chose a direct artery and not a peripheral
vein," Fernandez Vina said.

Unlike embryonic cells, stem cells have the ability to act as
"copiers" of the information they find in the organ into which they
are deposited.

People with diabetes have a shortage in the pancreas of so-called beta
cells, which have the task of producing insulin, with which the body
regulates glucose levels in the blood.

Introducing "copy-making" cells in the pancreas generates beta cell
production, thereby increasing the production of insulin needed to
balance the patient's glucose level.

Fernandez Vina noted that advantages of stem cell therapy in the
pancreas are that it can be repeated in the same patient and that the
catheterisation technique does not require particularly extensive
training.

The method "opens up an enormous area of research" into other
diseases, such as Hepatitis C, Fernandez Vina added.

"In any case, we have to be prudent and act cautiously," the
specialist said, noting that "every patient is different" and the
pancreas may have varying responses to this treatment.

The next phase of research, being funded by a private foundation at a
cost of US$1,600 per treatment, will commence February 1.

In phase two, 35 patients between the ages of 22 and 65 will be
selected from among 500 volunteers who have already stepped up and
offered to undergo the treatment.

"We are going to include diabetics whose beta cells no longer produce
insulin (who are insulin-dependent), as well as those who need
medication to boost their production" of beta cells, the researcher
explained.

"We want it to be a treatment that delivers results fast," added
Fernandez Vina, at the helm of a group of researchers at the public
Universidad Nacional de Rosario.

He is also an immunologist with the MD Anderson Cancer Center in
Houston, Texas.

The team's research in this case actually began in Argentina in 2003
with testing of the use of stem cells in the heart to repair heart
attack-damaged tissue.

The US-based Cardiovascular Research Foundation has voiced interest in
the research protocol, the Argentine research team leader added. - AFP