Treatments for Diabetes

There are several different treatment options for diabetic people. Your doctor could have you on a diet, oral medication, insulin injections, or a combination of them. It doesn’t matter if you are on oral medication, insulin injections, or both, diet is still going to be a required part of your diabetes control.

In Germany they are using adult stem cells from your own body (no fear of rejection) to combat diabetes in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. They are having good success at controlling both hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) and hypoglycemia (acute low blood sugar).

Now I know a little about stem cells because one thing that I take is called Stem Enhance and it stimulates the body’s release of stem cells increasing the amount of stem cells available to help your body heal itself. Stem cells, it seems, are the body’s building blocks and are the only cells that can become any other cell in the body, unlike specific cells. A bone cell can only become, or replicate, as another bone cell, a skin cell may only become, or replicate, as another skin cell, and on and on.

A stem cell can become any other cell. Therefore, the injections of stem cells into the damaged pancreas can have startling effects, becoming new pancreatic cells and replacing damaged areas with healthy cells. I actually read a study on this a year or so ago, before I started taking the Stem Enhance product.

For me this is exciting news and perhaps this procedure will be available in Canada in the future. I can imagine being free of taking needles. I know that Canadian scientists are studying the relationship between stem cells and their benefits to some diseases, including diabetes. There have been some clinical trials here with the injections of stem cells, but you have to be in severe straights to qualify for these. I am under control so I don’t qualify. I look forward to a time when these treatments will be available to more people.

Another treatment for diabetes is the insulin pump. A tiny tube, so small you cannot feel it, is put under your skin, this attaches to a small machine that uses a fast acting insulin. It continuously injects a basal amount of insulin. A basal amount is used to keep your glucose at a level when you are not eating. You tell the machine to give extra when you are eating a meal. I am told that more and more diabetics are using this now as it frees one from injections several times a day and is more convenient.

Gastric banding has, in cases of extreme obesity and diabetes been used as a treatment. By reducing the weight of an individual, you also reduce the need for insulin and, if enough weight is lost, may reduce the need for anything but diet to control type 2 diabetes. This all depends on the individual as each case is different.

Islet transplant is another experimental treatment that holds promise for the diabetic. Islets are taken from a donor pancreas and transplanted to the pancreas of a diabetic. Islets are found in clusters in the pancreas and contain beta cells. Beta cells produce insulin. The human trials conducted so far in this area are showing great promise.

Below is a video I found on Utube about another study for a drug that could be of benefit for diabetics.