Transplants from pigs may help diabetics

Alpha-1, a natural blood protein that fights inflammation, protects transplanted animal pancreatic islets – where insulin is produced – from rejection by the human body when used in combination with another anti-rejection therapy, according to an Israeli study financed by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

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This discovery, reported in the journal PLoS ONE in May, could open the door to successful islet transplants from mammals, such as pigs, for Type 1 diabetes patients. Type 1 diabetes affects an estimated three million people in the United States alone. The disease results from a problem with the production or distribution of the hormone insulin, which carries glucose to the body’s cells for energy. Insulin is made in the islet cells of the pancreas, and transplants of healthy human islets have successfully allowed recipients to stop using injected insulin on a daily basis. However, because there aren’t nearly enough human donors, regulatory agencies including the US Food and Drug Administration have approved clinical trials using islets from pigs. Here, the problem is not availability but the human body’s aggressive immune response against tissue from another species. More...

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