Essay Archive - Treating Diabetes with Transplanted Cells
Treating Diabetes with Transplanted Cells
Seventy-five years ago the type of diabetes that affected children and
young adults was lethal. In the 1990's investigators found that a hormone, that
was produced in Islets of Langerhans, was not being produced in diabetes
patients. This hormone, called insulin, enables other cells to take up sugar
glucose from the blood for energy. Diabetes patients who were not making insulin
had glucose from food accumulating in the blood while other tissues were
starving. Their are two types of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes has ceased completely
from making insulin and the people w....
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