In world first, Chinese scientists report cell therapy cure in diabetes case

A 59-year-old man with type 2 diabetes who needed multiple insulin injections daily was given an innovative cell transplant
He has now been insulin-free for 33 months and is not on any other medication, giving hope to other diabetes sufferers

Science

Dannie Peng

Published: 10:00am, 27 May 2024

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For patients battling diabetes, a group of Chinese scientists and clinicians may offer a glimmer of hope. For the first time in the world, a patient’s diabetes has reportedly been cured using cell therapy.

The patient, a 59-year-old man who had been living with type 2 diabetes for 25 years, was at serious risk of complications from the disease. He had a kidney transplant in 2017, but had lost most of his pancreatic islet function which controls blood glucose levels, and relied on multiple insulin injections every day.

“He was at great risk of serious diabetes complications,” Yin Hao, a leading researcher at Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, told Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper earlier this month.

The patient received the innovative cell transplant in July 2021. Eleven weeks after the transplant, he was free of the need for external insulin, and the dose of oral medication to control blood sugar levels was gradually reduced and completely stopped one year later.

“Follow-up examinations showed that the patient’s pancreatic islet function was effectively restored,” Yin said. The patient has now been completely weaned off insulin for 33 months.

The medical breakthrough, achieved by a team of doctors and researchers from institutions including Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, the Centre for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Renji Hospital, all based in Shanghai, was published in the journal Cell Discovery on April 30.

“I think this study represents an important advance in the field of cell therapy for diabetes,” said Timothy Kieffer, a professor in the department of cellular and physiological sciences at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Scientists and doctors from Shanghai Changzheng Hospital, among other facilities, worked on the breakthrough diabetes treatment. Photo: Baidu

Diabetes is a chronic condition that affects the way our bodies convert food into energy.

What we consume is broken down into glucose – a simple sugar – and released into the bloodstream. Insulin, produced by the islets of the pancreas, is essential for regulating blood sugar levels.

In diabetes, this system is hijacked: either the body does not produce enough insulin, or it cannot use the insulin it produces effectively.

There are several types of diabetes, of which type 2 is the most common, affecting almost 90 per cent of sufferers. It is largely diet-related and develops over time.

Regardless of the type of diabetes, failure to maintain normal blood glucose levels over time can lead to serious side effects, including heart disease, vision loss and kidney disease.

According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, “there isn’t a cure yet for diabetes”.

Along with losing weight, eating well and taking medication, insulin is the mainstay of treatment for some, but this requires frequent injections and monitoring.

Scientists around the world are researching islet transplant as a promising alternative, mainly by creating islet-like cells from human stem cell cultures. Now, after more than a decade of work, the group of Chinese scientists has come a step closer.

The team used and programmed the patient’s own peripheral blood mononuclear cells, Yin said, which were then transformed into “seed cells” and reconstituted pancreatic islet tissue in an artificial environment.

While preclinical data from Kieffer’s team supports the use of stem cell-derived islets for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, the report by Yin and colleagues is, to Kieffer’s knowledge, “the first evidence in humans”.

Yin said the breakthrough was another step forward in the relatively new field of regenerative medicine – where the body’s own regenerative capabilities are harnessed to treat illness.

“Our technology has matured and it has pushed boundaries in the field of regenerative medicine for the treatment of diabetes.”

Globally, China has the highest number of people with diabetes. According to the International Diabetes Federation, there are 140 million people with diabetes in the country. Of those, about 40 million depend on lifelong insulin injections.

China’s diabetic population is disproportionately high, according to Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

In an article last year, he pointed out that while China accounted for 17.7 per cent of the world’s population, the country’s diabetic population made up a staggering quarter of the global total, placing a huge health burden on the government.

If this approach for cell therapy ultimately works, Kieffer said, “it can free patients from the burden of chronic medications, improve health and quality of life, and reduce healthcare expenditures”.

But to get there, he added, studies in more patients based on the findings of this Chinese study were needed.