A number of scientific experiments currently underway in several hospitals around the world, including locations in the US, Europe, Asia and Latin America, are using immature adult stem cells in innovative type II diabetes therapies. The experts conducting these investigations hope that the cells will soon have the ability to cure the terrible disease, which affects millions around the world and has very damaging complications, of which the most important is diabetic retinopathy, a degenerative condition of the retina that leads to blindness.

The steps involved with using stem cells as weapons against diabetes are not exactly easy, and the patients have to go through a lot to achieve concrete results. At the University of Miami, for example, the procedure associated with this form of treatment is very complicated, and is currently being tested on some 25 volunteers, doctors report in the journal Cell Transplantation.

First of all, some of the participants' own bone marrow stem cells are extracted, which are then concentrated and purified in the lab. The next step is to inject the cells back into the body, in arteries near the pancreas. As soon as this is done, the patients are placed in hyperbaric oxygen chambers, very similar to those used by divers suffering from decompression sickness. They are kept there at very high pure oxygen concentrations, and also under pressures that are larger than those experienced by regular humans on the surface of the planet.

After some time in the chambers, the experts say that the immature stem cells have developed into pancreatic ones. They add that it's possible that the high oxygen pressure and purity have drawn even more stem cells from the bone marrow. Together, the two cellular groups have merged and started forming more pancreatic tissue, which means, in the end, that their bodies have produced more insulin, have required less shots with the stuff, and have also had lower blood sugar levels.

“This could be very important. It could be an improved treatment for diabetes, substantially ameliorating type 2 and preventing the complications of the disease,” University of Miami Diabetes Research Institute and Cell Transplant Center Director Dr. Camillo Ricordi explains. “We always have to avoid hype and be careful not to put too much hope in pilot trials. But the first results are really promising.”