1. What is Type 1 Diabetes?
   • Type 1 diabetes, or juvenile diabetes, occurs when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the insulin producing cells in the pancreas. Without insulin, the body’s cells cannot absorb glucose. This leaves the glucose in the bloodstream. High blood glucose levels can cause organ deterioration, ketoacidosis, coma and even death.
   What are Stem Cells?
   • Stem cells can convert themselves to special cells like insulin producing beta cells in the pancreas. They also have the ability to repair organs and tissues of the body by dividing themselves without limit. They can be extracted from bone marrow, muscle and the brain. These are called adult stem cells. The cells taken from these areas are able to generate replacements. This is a phenomenal step toward treating diseases like diabetes.
   Objective
   • The objective of diabetic stem cell treatment is to stop the immune system from attacking the beta cells of the pancreas. It is not possible to reverse diabetes with this method or any other method. The stem cell treatment can only stop the degeneration of the pancreas. Because of this, long-term diabetics will not benefit from this treatment. The best candidates for diabetic stem cell treatment are newly diagnosed patients. These diabetics still have a pancreas that can be saved.
   Diabetes Stem Cell Treatment Study
   • Fifteen diabetic patients with ages ranging from 14 to 31 were part of a stem cell treatment study in Brazil. These patients were given drugs and hormones to move their stem cells from the bone marrow to the bloodstream. Doctors used a device to remove the cells from the bloodstream. After two weeks, the patients received chemotherapy to destroy their current immune system over the course of five days. The patients rested for a day, and then were administered their own stem cells for 12 days. This created a new immune system that would not attack their pancreas.
   • To review more studies like this:http://repairstemcell.wordpress.com/diabetes-stem-cells/
   Results of Brazil study
   • The results of this treatment enabled 12 patients to stop taking insulin right away. Over the course of 18 months, two patients have not needed insulin injections. Five patients have been insulin-free for 23 months. One patient received no effect from the treatment. Doctors determined the patient’s diabetes progressed too far. According to Dr. Jay Skyler, with the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, even if insulin shots are still needed, the treatment is a success if it saves beta cells from being destroyed.

For Calif. High School Students, Cedars-Sinai Presents Stem Cell Essay Competition and Education Program

Newswise — LOS ANGELES (March 31, 2011) – California high school students may compete for three $500 essay awards and attend a free educational program on stem cells sponsored by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Department of Neurosurgery. The winning authors also will be invited to spend a summer volunteering in a Cedars-Sinai laboratory, learning with stem cell neuroscientists.

“Stem cell technologies and therapies are in their early stages but we believe they hold great promise, which we only now are beginning to realize. We’re making this program available to high school students because they will be the next generation of scientists and we hope to introduce them to the exciting possibility of curing many diseases by replenishing or replacing defective cells with healthy new ones,” said John S. Yu, M.D., who will lead the program. He is a neurosurgeon, stem cell research scientist, director of surgical neuro-oncology and vice chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery…

For Calif. High School Students, Cedars-Sinai Presents Stem Cell Essay Competition and Education Program.

Adult Stem Cells Help Patients with Aggressive Multiple Sclerosis
by David Prentice – March 22, 2011

A team of scientists from Thessaloniki, Greece, have shown that chemotherapy followed by adult stem cell transplant can stop progression of aggressive multiple sclerosis (MS). The team observed a group of 35 patients who received transplants of their own bone marrow adult stem cells after being treated with chemotherapy to wipe out the rogue immune cells that were attacking their nervous system and causing their MS. An average of 11 years after their transplants, 25% of the patients in Greece have not seen their disease progress, the researchers report. Among patients with active lesions on MRI scans before their transplants, indicating that they were in an inflammatory phase of the disease, 44% have not progressed. For 16 people, symptoms improved by an average of one point on their disability scale after the transplant, and the improvements lasted for an average of two years. The participants also had a reduction in the number and size of lesions in their brains. But two patients died from transplant-related complications. The results arepublished in the journal Neurology, the journal of the American Association of Neurology. Co-author Dr. Vasilios Kimiskidis said:

“Keeping that in mind, our feeling is that stem cell transplants may benefit people with rapidly progressive MS. This is not a therapy for the general population of people with MS but should be reserved for aggressive cases that are still in the inflammatory phase of the disease.”

Other researchers not associated with the current study commented that this was still a big step forward in the use of adult stem cells to treat MS Dr. Richard Nash of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle noted:

“This is the first long-term paper that’s being published on this.”

Nash is part of a National Institutes of Health trial of stem cell transplants for MS, but he was not involved in the Greek study.

Dr. Richard Burt, Chief of the Division of Medicine-Immunotherapy for Autoimmune Diseases at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, points out:

“It’s the only therapy to date that has been shown to reverse neurologic deficits. But you have to get the right group of patients.”

Burt published a study in 2009 in The Lancet in which 17 out of 21 patients with relapsing-remitting MS improved after stem cell transplants.

In a gentler method of treatment, Prof. Neil Scolding and colleagues published positive results in 2010 for stabilization of MS patients using their own adult stem cells.

Adult stem cells continue to lead the way, showing published evidence of positive benefits for thousands of patients with dozens of diseases and conditions.

FRC Blog » Adult Stem Cells Help Patients with Aggressive Multiple Sclerosis.