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Diabetes success story6/13/2023 ![]() In 2008, the company succeeded, but with a clever twist. However, to make a specific type of cell, researchers must replicate the exact signals that transform a stem cell into a beta cell, rather than a neuron or muscle cell. Stem cells are promising because they can form any tissue. They have spent years developing new methods to turn human embryonic stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells. With more than $72 million in funding from CIRM, a San Diego-based company named ViaCyte is working on this solution. Type 2 patients, like Maria, could increase their body’s ability to produce insulin, lowering blood sugar levels and alleviating the need for injections. Patients with type 1 diabetes would benefit because new beta cells would replace the ones they’d lost to disease. One of the most promising strategies to cure diabetes is to transplant beta cells, which sense blood sugar levels and produce insulin to reduce them. Even with the regular injections, she faces dramatic mood swings and more serious complications as glucose levels rise and fall. ![]() Maria injects the hormone five times a day and must often measure her blood sugar levels even more frequently.įaithfully following this regimen has kept her alive for 20 years, but insulin is not a cure. To help her cells absorb glucose, she needs regular insulin injections. As a result, glucose was accumulating in her blood, putting her at risk for heart disease, nerve damage, eye issues and a host of other problems. Though her pancreas was producing insulin, which tells cells to take in blood sugar, the cells were not cooperating. Her cells had developed a condition called insulin resistance. ![]() Regardless, she now had to rework her life to manage the diabetes. Most likely, some undiscovered genetic component had made her susceptible to the disease. Type 2 diabetes is often associated with obesity, and she didn’t fit the profile. That Maria doubted her diagnosis is no surprise. At 43, for reasons no one could fully explain, she had diabetes, and her life was going to change dramatically. Maria asked her doctor to repeat the tests, but the results were the same. She exercised, ate well and kept her weight under control. The last thing Maria Torres expected was to be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
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