From Family Research Council – Washington, DC – www.frc.org – 800-225-4008
Touted ESCR Diabetes Studies, NO CURES:
2001 Media heralded study showed that embryonic stem cells turned into pancreatic cells. In fact, they only produced 1/50th the normal amount of insulin. Lumelsky N. et al., Differentiation of embryonic stem cells to insulin-secreting structures similar to pancreatic islets, Science 292, 1389-1394; May 18, 2001.
2002 A study showed embryonic stem cells turned into a kind of insulin-producing cell, not beta cells, that produced 13% of the normal insulin levels. When injected, the mice were kept alive but not enough to cure the diabetes. Hori Y, Rulifson IC, Tsai BC, Heit JJ, Cahoy JD, Kim SK. Growth inhibitors promote differentiation of insulin-producing tissue from embryonic stem cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Dec 10;99(25):16105-10. Epub 2002 Nov 19. PMID: 12441403.
2003 Follow-up study showed that these pancreatic cells did not actually produce insulin (they absorbed it from the culture).
2004 A study showed that embryonic stem cells produced insulin-producing cells, again not beta cells, and they did not cure the mice but formed tumors. Sipione S., et al., Insulin expressing cells from differentiated embryonic stem cells are not beta cells, Diabetologia 47, 499-508, 2004 (publishedonline 14 Feb 2004).
ADULT CELLS successfully TREAT HUMANS with diabetes:
2005 A recent report shows that islet cells can now be donated from live donors for patients, opening up many more possibilities for transplants. Using this technique, a mother donated cells for her diabetic daughter, alleviating the diabetic symptoms (Matsumota S et al., Insulin independence after living-donor distal pancreatectomy and islet allotransplantation, The Lancet, 365, 1642-1644, 7 May 2005.)
2001 The Edmonton protocol was used to isolate cadaveric islet cells to treat 12 people with juvenile diabetes. Ryan A. et al., Glycemic Outcome Post Islet Transplantation, Annual Meeting of the American Diabetes Association, June 22-26, 2001. Since 2001, over 200 diabetic patients have been treated with this protocol.
ADULT STEM CELLS successfully TREAT diabetes in MICE:
2005 Israeli scientists have found that patients could serve as their own donors, converting their liver cells to insulin-secreting cells. Sapir et al., Cell-replacement therapy for diabetes: generating functional insulin-producing tissue from adult human liver cells, PNAS 102, 7964-7969, 17 May 2005.
2004 University of Florida researchers restored normal blood sugar levels in diabetic mice for three months by getting bone marrow stem cells to transdifferentiate into islet-like cells that produced normal insulin levels. Oh SH, Muzzonigro TM, Bae SH, LaPlante JM, Hatch HM, Petersen BE. Adult bone marrow-derived cells trans-differentiating into insulin-producing cells for the treatment of type I diabetes, Lab Invest, 2004 May; 84(5):607-17.
2003 Researchers used spleen cells to help regenerate pancreatic islet cells that produced insulin and permanently reversed diabetes in mice. The lead researcher stated that using this procedure patients with fully established diabetes possibly could have their diabetes reversed (BBC News Online, 14 November 2003), and hopes to test the approach in clinical trials. Kodama S, Kuhtreiber W, Fujimura S, Dale EA, Faustman DL. Islet regeneration during the reversal of autoimmune diabetes in NOD mice, Science, 2003 Nov 14; 302(5648):1223-7.
2002 It was reported that University of Florida researchers turned liver stem cells into pancreatic cells. When implanted into mice, these transformed cells reversed their hyperglycemia in 10 days. Yang L. et al., In vitro trans-differentiation of adult hepatic stem cells into pancreatic endocrine hormone producing cells, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Online Early Edition; 10.1073/pnas.122210699; June 4, 2002.
2001 Scientists retrained immune cells to reverse diabetes in mice. The autoimmunity that was previously directed against insulin-secreting cells was reversed and adult stem cells in the mice formed insulin-secreting cells. The treatment was thus able to effect an apparent cure of established type 1 diabetes in the [diabetic] mouse. Ryu S, Faustman DL et al.; Reversal of established autoimmune diabetes by restoration of endogenous B cell function, J. Clin. Invest. 108, 6372; July 2001.
QUESTIONS that should be asked about ESCR and DIABETES:
Have any people been treated successfully with embryonic stem cells for any disease?
How many animals have been treated for diabetes with embryonic stem cells?
Should embyronic stem cells really be injected into people when they tend to form tumors?
Using adult stem cells, Denise Faustman at Harvard reversed diabetes in animal models and her work is FDA approved for human clinical trials. JDRF denied her application for funding.
Why doesnt JDRF fund her successful FDA-approved research?
Embryonic Stem Cell Research is legal. Yet we are finding that only adult stem cells are providing successful treatments.
Why should the government divert funds away from treatments that are showing success in humans?
[family research council – washington, dc – www.frc.org – 800-225-4008; www.stemcellresearch.org]