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Diabetes and Adoption
Rachel and her husband chose to adopt a baby instead of meeting the challenges of handling a high risk pregnancy and Rachel’s type 1 diabetes at the same time. She shares their thought process and ultimate happy ending about the decision to bring a child into their lives.
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Chris Matthews Makes Time for Diabetes
Hosting Hardball on MSNBC and The Chris Matthews Show keep Chris Matthews working long hours. But Matthews got a lesson in priorities and made some life changes when he was diagnosed with type 2.
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A Chihuahua with Diabetes
Olivia and her dog both have diabetes and today they comfort and encourage each other through the rigors of dealing with the disease. Plus, find out what it means when your domestic pet is diagnosed with diabetes.
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Smoking and Diabetes
Smoking has severe effects on your diabetes and your health. Learn why diabetes and smoking are an especially bad combination and get some tips from the experts on how to quit.
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Continuous Glucose Monitors
CGM is a relatively new technology, but the information it provides is invaluable. Find out what CGM offers and whether it could help you.
The must-have resource for physicians, educators and medical professionals who focus on the treatment of diabetes.
Finally! A fresh take on the “professional” journal. Each bi-monthly issue cuts through the jargon and presents the most important information you need to enhance your practice and assist your patients.
Each bi-monthly issue of Diabetes Health Professional is a self-contained handbook covering products, educational resources and the latest diabetes research, complimented by balanced editorial focused on medical news, drug prescription information, clinical practice recommendations and changing treatment options.
Each quarter we send you the latest, most updated research guides, product guides and educational resource guides available for you and your patients.
Each week the Diabetes Health E-Newsletter delivers links to the very latest in news, reviews, blogs and videos from Diabetes Health direct to your inbox.
As a subscriber you'll get access to the amazing Diabetes Health Digital Advantage™ so you can read the current issue of Diabetes Health magazine online wherever you are!
Latest Islet & Pancreas Transplant Articles
On the research front
Who Are Those Masked Cells? They’re Researchers’ Answer to Avoiding Transplant Rejection
One of the most promising approaches to the treatment of type 1 diabetes is the transplantation of human islet cells. The major drawback to the procedure has been that even though recipients initially enjoy revitalized pancreases that pump out copious amounts of insulin, their immune systems soon act as spoilsports and reject the donated cells.
Currently, the only way around the problem is to give patients powerful drugs that suppress their immune responses. Unfortunately, the drugs themselves can harm the newly transplanted cells, as well as leave patients exposed to infections.
But an artful solution may be on the way. Working with diabetic mice, researchers at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine have succeeded in tricking the animals' immune systems into perceiving transplanted islet cells as their own. As a result, the cells continue to thrive-a far cry from their average 15-day lifespan after normal transplant procedures.
What the researchers did was to take splenocytes, a type of white blood cell, from the donor's spleen and treat them with a chemical that masked their identity. They injected the cells into diabetic mice before and after the mice underwent islet cell transplantation. When the actual islet cells were transplanted, the mouse immune systems did not sense them as foreign or dangerous and therefore did not reject them.
In more than 70 percent of the mice that received the treated splenocytes, the transplanted islet cells thrived for at least 150 days.
The next step will be to see if the same technique can be applied to treat autoimmune disease itself, "tricking" mice that are prone to acquiring diabetes into ceasing the attacks on their own bodies that destroy their insulin-making powers.
If that step is successful, the cell therapy will be tested on human subjects.
Categories: Islet & Pancreas Transplant, Research, Type 1 Issues
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