The Beneficial Effects Of Stem Cell Therapy On Diabetes

Stem cell therapy can improve pancreatic islets function, hepatic glucose, and lipid metabolism while lowering blood sugar.

Clinical research and applications have shown that through stem cell therapy, about 65% of the patients are no longer dependent on insulin or oral drug to treat diabetes, and over 90% of patients reported reduced a dosage of insulin or oral drug or changed from insulin injection to oral drug. Collectively, stem cell therapy greatly diminished the onset and development of diabetes complications.

The era of clinical stem cell therapy for diabetes has come!

Reduction of diabetes medication intake
Maintenance of normal blood sugar levels
Restoration of the sensitivity of peripheral tissue to insulin and increase of insulin levels
Prevention and improvement of related diabetic foot symptoms
Reduction of hepatocyte lipid-related lesions
Improvement in the condition of the arterial walls and reduction of hyperinsulinemia and atherosclerosis
Prevention or reversion of certain complications of diabetes, such as erectile dysfunction and vision loss

Diabetes-Related Diseases That Stem Cell Therapy Can Treat

Type 1 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes

Stem cell therapy also can treat complications of diabetes including:

Diabetic foot: foot infections, ulcers, and deep layer tissue damage.
Diabetic retinopathy: it can cause blurred vision, decreased vision, and even blindness.
Diabetic cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases: it can cause a cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, vascular dementia, etc.
Diabetic neuropathy: it can cause numbness and tingle in hands and feet, orthostatic hypotension, vomiting, urinary, and fecal incontinence, etc.
Diabetic nephropathy(chronic renal failure): it can cause foamy urine, edema, and renal failure.
Capillary and macrovascular complications: diabetes can lead to narrowing of lower extremity arteries, coronary heart disease, stroke, etc.

In 2019, the famous US news magazine “TIME” listed diabetes treatment with stem cell therapy as one of the top 10 innovative medical inventions that will change the future. In the year 2021, Mass General Brigham selected the ground-breaking “stem cell therapies for Diabetes” as one of the Top 12 “Disruptive gene and cell therapy technologies”.

Learn More About Diabetes

Diabetes is a metabolic disorder disease characterized by hyperglycemia(high blood sugar), it is also the third-largest non-infectious chronic disease following cancer and cardiovascular disease. There are approximately 537 million diabetes patients in the world by the year 2021.

Clinically, there are three main types of diabetes: type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes (diabetes while pregnant). The major incidence populations of type 1 diabetes are adolescents and children, it is recognized by the destruction of pancreatic β-cells which leads to insufficient insulin secretion and hyperglycemia. Type 2 diabetes is caused by genetic, and environmental factors and their interactions. Usually, it is characterized by malfunction of pancreatic β-cell and insulin resistance in cells. Gestational diabetes develops in pregnant women who have never had diabetes before. If you have gestational diabetes, your baby could be at higher risk for health problems. Your baby is more likely to have obesity as a child or teen, and more likely to develop type 2 diabetes later in life too.

Risk Factors For Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is believed to have a strong genetic link, meaning that it tends to run in families. If you have a parent, brother, or sister who has it, your chances rise.

You should ask your doctor about a diabetes test when you have any of the following risk factors:

High blood pressure.
High blood triglyceride (fat) levels. It's too high if it's over 150 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL).
Low "good" cholesterol level. It's too low if it's less than 40 mg/dL.
Gestational diabetes or giving birth to a baby weighing more than 9 pounds.
Prediabetes. That means your blood sugar level is above normal, but you don't have the disease yet.
Heart disease.
High-fat and carbohydrate diet. This can sometimes be the result of food insecurity when you don’t have access to enough healthy food.
High alcohol intake.
Sedentary lifestyle.
Obesity or being overweight.
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Being of ethnicity that’s at higher risk: African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans are more likely to get type 2 diabetes than non-Hispanic whites.
You're over 45 years of age. Older age is a significant risk factor for type 2 diabetes. The risk of type 2 diabetes begins to rise significantly around age 45 and rises considerably after age 65.
You’ve had an organ transplant. After an organ transplant, you need to take drugs for the rest of your life so your body doesn’t reject the donor. organ. These drugs help organ transplants succeed, but many of them, such as tacrolimus (Astagraf, Prograf) or steroids, can cause diabetes or make it worse.

Clinical Symptoms Of Diabetes

Polyuia
Dry mouth and increased thirst
Strong appetite
Unexplained Weight loss
Fatigue
Obesity
Presence of glucose in urine
Presence of ketones in urine
Abnormal high amount of glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) in serum
Glycated serum protein abnormality
Abnormal amount of insulin and c-peptide in serum
Dyslipidemia(unhealthy level of blood fat)

Stem Cell Therapy For Diabetes At SQ1

Stem cells used in the treatment of diabetes

SQ1 provides access to treatment that utilizes mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) isolated from the cord blood, placenta, and/or peripheral blood of patients and embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs), into pancreatic endocrine lineages.

A combination MSCs and hESCs delivered via the intravenous route for 30 minutes at a delivery rate of 40 mL/hour to a final dose of 1 × 106 cells/kg of the patient's body weight.

The combination of cells and other treatment details are individual to the patient and is determined by genetically-programmed factors, individual to every human.

The therapeutic scope and efficacy of stem cell therapy for diabetes

A double infusion of hESCs+MSCs through either the intravenous route or the dorsal pancreatic artery route is performed for patients with type 2 Diabetes. The therapy exhibited term efficacy (7-9 months) in patients with type 2 diabetes for less than 10 years (the longest period of remission registered to date is 10 years and the shortest – 2 years) and a BMI <23 kg/m2 and improvement in hyperglycemia, reported blood glucose levels within the normal range.

Our results revealed reductions in the HbA1c and FBG levels during the first 3 months after administration in patients with type 2 Diabetes, deemed clinically significant because the reduction was maintained in a normal range at 12 months after administration.

Factors determining the efficacy of the treatment and remission term are individual and genetically driven.

Advantages Of Stem Cell Treatment For Diabetes

Traditional therapeutic methods, such as daily medication or injections of exogenous insulin, are the most common diabetes treatment, but their use is frequently associated with failure of glucose metabolism control, which leads to hyperglycemia episodes.

Stem cell therapy is a promising strategy for avoiding the problems associated with daily insulin injections. To maintain glucose homeostasis, this therapeutic method is expected to produce, store, and supply insulin. To completely cure diabetes, cell-based therapies aim to produce functional insulin-secreting cells.

Stem cell therapy

Conventional treatment

Curative Treatment or diseases management

The stem cell is a curative treatment for diabetes. Stem cell therapy is designed to rejuvenate the pancreas which helps the body to produce insulin naturally.

If given in the early stages, the dependency on medication and insulin can be reversed.

Insulin and medicine are used to control the amount of glucose in your blood. It is not a cure treatment it is used to control diabetes.

Slowly and gradually, people on medication move to insulin dependency.

Dosage

Stem cell therapy reduces the dosages of medication and insulin as the body starts producing insulin naturally.

If given in the early stages, the dependency on medication and insulin can be reversed.

Stem cell experts based on your current level of disease and other comorbidities will design a customized protocol and decide, the number of stem cells, source of stem cells, and cycles of stem cell therapy.

Patients who are on medication will observe a slow and gradual increase in dosages of medication.

At a certain point in time when medication is not able to manage the sugar levels, external insulin support will be required.

Patients who are on insulin support need to take insulin daily before consumption of food. The doses of insulin also increase with time.

Side-effects

No Side-effects as stem cells are our cells that are used to treat the disease and regenerate the pancreas to regain proper functioning.

Some of the common side-effects that medication and insulin can develop are upset stomach, skin rash or itching, weight gain, tiredness, and if not taken properly can even low blood sugar extremely.

Convenience

Stem cell therapy is performed by stem cell specialists which requires a special laboratory to process the stem cells and the medical set up to extract and inject the stem cell.

The therapy is going to be injection-based and needs to be performed in a hospital.

Medication that can be easily consumed.

Repeated and multiple small pricks for insulin injection for the patients who are currently on insulin.

The strict discipline to take medication or insulin on time as prescribed.

Longevity

Long-term effect and possibly curative treatment which removes the dependency on insulin and medication if taken in the early stage.

If taken in the later stages it reduces your dependency on medication and insulin. In a few cases, a repeat cycle may also be required.

Short-term effects.

Need to take insulin and medication daily as prescribed and the medication and effectiveness are for a few hours or a day.

The patient needs to take the medication and insulin lifetime.

End-stage

Stem cells are the basic building block of our body. The main functionality of stem cells is to regenerate the damaged cells and make copies of their own cells to repair the damaged cells.

Your own body is healing you and deferring the need for a transplant.

A pancreas transplant is the only treatment in the end stage.

There is a high probability that the kidney might also be damaged due to diabetes so in some cases both kidney and pancreas transplants would be required.

The availability of the donor and the waiting period can be a big reason for worry.

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How Can Stem Cell Therapy For Diabetes Work

Stem cells were able to lower blood sugar levels and restore islet function in the following three ways:

Improvement of insulin resistance: stem cells will secret a variety of cytokines to improve the insulin resistance conditions in peripheral tissues and promote sugar intake by cells, thus reversing the hyperglycemia status in the body.
Promotion of regeneration of pancreatic islet β cells: Stem cells can reduce the progressive lesion to pancreatic islets from metabolic disorders in diabetes, at the same time can regenerate pancreatic β cells. In addition, stem cells can secret various cytokines to improve the microenvironment and induce the transformation of islet α cells to β cells. This process enables the in-situ regeneration of β cells and leads to the stabilization of blood sugar level.
Immunomodulation effect: stem cells can inhibit the T cell-mediated immune response against newly generated β cells and promote the repair and regeneration of pancreatic islets.

SQ1 Stem Cell Services

During the whole treatment process, we’ll provide complete and first-class medical services to you. And to ensure your treatment effect, you can consult your doctor any time after the treatment.