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New Zealand researchers claim to have developed a breakthrough treatment for diabetes, after tests that included some patients in Mexico, but its use is banned in NZ.
Diatranz, of Auckland, says it has conducted a successful trial that could eventually provide a cure for 15 million people around the world with type 1 diabetes who now need daily injections of insulin, the New Zealand Herald reported.
But the New Zealand Health Ministry have banned the process, which uses insulin-producing cells from the pancreas of newborn piglets, because of the risk that pig viruses could be spread to human patients.
Diatranz claims a Mexican schoolgirl, now 18, given the pig cell transplants had overcome diabetes.
Twelve Mexican teenage diabetics - six girls and six boys - received the transplants between 14 and 20 months ago, the Herald said.
Four girls and one boy now produce enough of their own insulin, using the transplanted cells, to at least halve their daily
injections, Diatranz medical director Dr Bob Elliott told the Herald.
He said this made the transplants worthwhile because of the risks and cost of total dependence on injections.
"Diabetics currently tend to get too much or too little insulin, even in the same day," he said, noting that their lifespan is
shorted by a third because of "rather nasty blood-vessel complications".
Elliott and other Diatranz scientists had made 12 trips to Mexico carrying the pig cells with them and Dr Rafael Valdes at the Mexico City Children's Hospital had developed a unique method of transplanting them, the Herald reported.
© AAP
