2024-07-16 12:33:19
Diabetes mellitus is a widespread disease: Many people around the world suffer from diabetes, which is divided into different types. Although fewer people in Germany are struggling with type 1 diabetes, many people are still struggling: According to Deutsche Diabetes Hilfe, there are around 372,000 people who have been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and are struggling with the autoimmune disease . How do experts assess the chances of a final cure? And what approaches will already be available in 2024? Doctors answer important questions.
Type 1 Diabetes Cure: Suffering from an autoimmune disease
Type 1 diabetes is one of nearly 100 known autoimmune diseases German medical journal explained. Although progress is being made now and again, according to the specialist portal, there is still “no curative therapy” that can finally cure a condition like type 1 diabetes. Incidentally, a treatment is called a cure when it aims to fully restore a patient’s health. That makes it clear gbe-bund.dea portal operated by the Federal Statistics Office.
The reason why people suffer from type 1 diabetes in the first place is because of an autoimmune disease: In type 1 diabetes, the beta cells are attacked and destroyed by the body’s own immune system, which is the term autoimmunity is based on it. Because there is a lack of insulin, the blood sugar level of the organism rises rapidly, which, if left untreated, leads to a diabetic coma, which can be fatal. explains Heiko Lickert on the website of the German Ministry of Education.
According to the information, the professor holds the chair for beta-cell biology at the Faculty of Medicine at the Technical University of Munich, director of the Institute for Diabetes and Regeneration Research (IDR) and assistant professor at the Institute for Stem Cell Research (ISF) . ) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München.
Can type 1 diabetes be cured? Doctors develop solutions
The doctor points out that type 1 diabetes can now be easily treated. However, this is not the same as a cure: “For patients, this means that they have to measure their blood sugar several times a day and inject themselves with insulin,” explains Lickert. After all, insulin administration requires a lot of time and monitoring, and side effects cannot be ruled out.
However, the scientist is working on a project that may not require regular insulin injections for people with type 1 diabetes in the future. The solution is an islet cell transplant. The Helmholtz Research Center Munich explains the progress made in stem cell therapy on its website: First, the loss of insulin-producing beta cells in the “Islets of Langerhans” of the pancreas is said to be the cause of type 1 diabetes.
How does the medical effort to cure type 1 diabetes work? “For many years, researchers have been working on generating functional islet cells from stem cells from healthy human donors for cell transplant therapy,” describes the institute. According to the information, the process is currently being tested in initial human clinical studies. “Stem cell-based replacement therapy has proven to be a promising alternative approach for restoring islet function in diabetic patients.”
The whole pancreas from a donor is worth an organ transplant, according to the Sports information diabetes it is possible, but involves some risks. However, according to the information, it is a “major surgical procedure that involves certain risks, like all operations,” the portal explains.
Type 1 diabetes: hope for a cure thanks to stem cell therapy
Scientists at the Helmholtz Diabetes Center are investigating methods that could solve a well-known problem in medicine: protecting transplanted islet cells from the recipient’s immune system so they can become a realistic insulin therapy option for patients.
As with organ transplants, the recipient’s immune system can react to newly transplanted islet cells and reject them with antibodies. As the institution explainspatients undergoing islet transplantation must use long-term immunization to combat this danger and the destruction of the immune system associated with the transplanted cells.
As Katharina Warncke, a senior doctor at the Center for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in Munich, explained to us when asked, she thinks it will take a long time before the method is used in practice. This also applies to other medical methods: “In my opinion T1D is unlikely (Anm. d. Red.: Diabetes mellitus Type 1) can be cured today, tomorrow or in a year, but there is an interesting approach for those affected,” says the doctor, who is also a scientist at the Helmholtz Center in Munich.
Cured from diabetes type 1: I hope thanks to medication and insulin pumps
Warncke explains that there are “promising methods” that could lead to significant improvement. The doctor emphasizes two approaches:
- She describes the drug Teplizumab developed in the USA as a brand new drug. It is a preventive measure that prevents the development and Onset of type 1 diabetes can be postponed. Immunotherapy is therefore aimed at people who are already at high risk of developing type 1 diabetes. “Although you may not be able to cure diabetes completely, you could significantly improve your metabolism,” explains Warncke. With the active ingredient teplizumab, it is possible to slow down the course of the rapidly progressing disease,” for both Kind as well as adults,” says Warncke. But, according to her, there is no approval in Europe yet.
- Another promising approach is to use innovative insulin pumps, which come with Blood sugar sensor tied. The device reacts to the blood sugar level and controls it Insulin control automatically. The only weak point at the moment is food intake, which requires a manual reaction from the patient.
Can type 1 diabetes be cured? “A combination of different approaches”
According to Kálmán Bódis, a specialist in the Department of Endocrinology and Diabetes at the University Hospital Düsseldorf, “a complete cure for type 1 diabetes is a complex goal, the timing of which depends on further developments of the various research approaches.”
When asked, the researcher at the clinical study center of the German Diabetes Center (DDZ) explains to us that, in his opinion, “various promising approaches” are being intensively researched. Everyone has the potential to make significant progress in curing type 1 diabetes. “But it is still not clear which approach is ultimately more successful,” explains the human scientist. For him, in addition to those mentioned, gene therapy is also a promising method:
He acts loudly Diabetes-Deutschland.de about a type of therapy to treat insulin deficiency using “targeted manipulation of genetic material”. With this method, the genes generated in the laboratory are introduced into corresponding target cells. According to Bódis, “healing type 1 diabetes will likely require a combination of approaches.”
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Patrick Freiwah
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Autoimmune disease
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medicine
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