Researchers find “cure” for diabetes
US scientists claim to have found a cure for diabetes, available by the end of the decade.
Following rigorous tests on mice, researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Immunobiology Laboratory said a simple procedure of injecting insulin-producing spleen cells could halt and reverse prevalent type-1 diabetes.
Marita Gomez, a spokeswoman for the Iacocca Foundation, a backer of the research, said: “Within the next 12 months you should start to see the beginning of human trials.”
Leader of the research, Dr Denise Faustman said: “The lowly spleen has a new unsuspected job assignment other than representing a useless bag of white blood cells.
“The spleen is a source of adult precursor cells that accelerates the insulin-secreting islet regeneration.”
Separately, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said yesterday, marking World Diabetes Day, that the number of diabetes sufferers in the developing world could jump from 115 million to 285 million within three decades.
