Question about diabetes?

Question:

i don't have type one diabetes, but i've been seeing stuff about it on tv and stuff. and i did a little bit of research. the reason why people have diabetes is because their pancreus doesn't produce insulin, correct? so why don't they just clone a healthy person's pancreus, and replace it with the diabetic's pancreus? it seems like the simple thing to do so i think some people have already thought of it, but why don't they just do that?

Answers:
1.) Rejection. One person's immune system is very different from another's. That's why transplant recipients have to take very toxic drugs to prevent them from rejecting their new organ. These drugs often cut lifespan to 10 years or less, and increase the risk of fatal infections and cancer. The body does not accept the DNA of others well!

2.) Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease. The body mistakenly attacks the healthy cells in the pancreas that make insulin. That autoimmune process never goes away. If a new pancreas is transplanted, it will be attacked again, even if the person's own DNA is used. That means, even if we could grow a pancreas from a person's own cells just like the first one, transplanting it would not work for long. It would be destroyed again very quickly. The drugs needed to stop this process would be so strong that they would kill the patient.

Pancreas and Islet cell transplants have been tried. They do not work very well and there is little hope that they will ever be a cure for Type 1 diabetes in their current state. They usually last 1 year or less, blood sugar control is better but not actually 100% normal in most cases, and toxic drugs have to be taken every day.

So, no cure yet! But keep thinking! :)

The major key to stopping Type 1 diabetes is curing/stopping the autoimmune process that caused it in the first place. Any kind of stem cell research, etc. is useless without that.

Diabetics have healing problems because of the high or low level of sugar produced in their body. They are more prone to infections and complications with such an invasive surgery being performed. You have probably heard of people that are Diabetics, they might have a little accident, a pinprick, a bump on their foot and a while later if it's not taken care of they have to amputate their leg. I don't think anyone would want to take that chance especially with vital organs. It's not certain also how the Diabetic will react to the new organ. They might reject it and that can make the situation worse.

that's why they might not be trying it.

Cloning a pancreas is not at all a simple thing to do. It would take a lot of research to figure out how.

You are basically talking about doing a pancreas transplant which is something that is already being done except for the cloning part. It is usually done along with a kidney transplant. Because of the complications involved with transplants, this is only done with people who have a severe case of diabetes.

i actually asked that question a couple years ago. basically, the pancreas has too many jobs. insulin production is the job of specific cells called the islets of langerhans. it would be hard to create a pancreas that can secrete all the enzymes the pancreas secretes in the right order with the right "coding" and still have to worry about rejection.

they are trying islet cell transplants, and that may be successful in the future.

maybe someday, but just not yet.

Question about diabetes?

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