pancreas transplant

[Noemergencyexit]

As someone with type one diabetes I was asked the other day to explain it to someone and I said basically a normal human beings pancreas makes insulin as type one diabetic mine doesn’t work like that.

What would be people’s thoughts do you think a pancreas transplant could cure and end diabetes in our time frame?
I know a organ transplant is a lot of work and everything but could one cure diabetes

What’s your thoughts on this subject

 

[kitedoc]

Hi @Noemergencyexit.com , a very thiughtful question.
There are i believe changes at the moment with pancreatic transplants such as how to stop the very antibodies which ''zapped' one's beta cells from doing the sane again. And that leads to suppressing one's immune system to try tobstop this as well as stop one's body rejection someone elses tissue in the first place.
Transplanting beta cells only to another part if ifone's body has been thiught abiut but similar antibody problems could arise plus the cells might not be able to release insulin in a way that is really that much more effective than current therapies.

 

[Noemergencyexit]

So I was right then the cure for diabetes is so long away half or most of us here right now might never see it. I under that people want to stop cancer and strokes and all other illnesses
I was posting it to see if I was the only one who thought this might be an idea I would say clone the organ and the cells it’s far off but i could be a step in the right place

 

[kitedoc]

I meant to mention @Grant_Vicat as someone who has valuable kniwledge and experience in this and other ares.

 

[Grant_Vicat]

So I was right then the cure for diabetes is so long away half or most of us here right now might never see it. I under that people want to stop cancer and strokes and all other illnesses
I was posting it to see if I was the only one who thought this might be an idea I would say clone the organ and the cells it’s far off but i could be a step in the right place

Hi @Noemergencyexit.com To put things in perspective: In the 1960's we were led to believe that a cure was probably 5 years away! At age thirteen (1971) I was told that I should make it to 20. In my early twenties an actuary told me I might make 40. I was resigned to my fate and believed I had diabetes for life. When I was told in 2012, because my kidney function was very poor and I had had both eyes lasered more than once, that they could put me on the list for a kidney/pancreas transplant, I was stunned.
Saying goodbye to over 32,000 injections and a similar number of finger pricks, was fantasy land. I still find it amazing. I look at it as a cure, but, as you will find on the home page Most Popular Number 5, the medical fraternity do not count me as cured. It is true that I face different challenges, but none of them compare with what Type 1 did to my body (partly through my own stupidity in the first 20 years) over a 54 year span. On exactly the 5th anniversary of my transplant (14th August 2018) I was told that my lipase in the blood had reached a dangerous level of over 160 where 51 is the upper limit. They doubled one of the immuno-suppressant drugs and eventually by early February this year were able to say that the transplant was not being rejected. These blips can occur without warning or any physical changes and are obviously deeply unsettling. They are also a reminder that it was my immune system which attacked my Beta cells in 1959. Personally I think the rapid advances made in cellular function, both in diabetes and cancer, let alone other diseases, means that a cure in your lifetime is infinitely more likely. The problem with stem cell rebuilding is that it still wouldn't prevent an over active immune system from destroying good tissue. It must surely be this, which is being investigated even as I write, that has to be the real cure. I hope you are amongst millions of beneficiaries!

 

[Miszty]

Here in the U.S., I was following a semi-recent story. It told of a person who got one of the first pancreas transplants. Her blood sugars, (which she checked just to be sure) were like a normal persons should be, and to top that off, she wasn't even taking insulin or other medication! Sadly, about a week or so after the transplant, she passed away, not from complications, but from a heart attack. We won't know how these transplants will work out until more stories of such are followed.

 

[PatsyB]

Scary me thinks