Dr. Jeon’s Health Information
→Diabetes management
Type 1 is treated with insulin replacement therapy ? usually by injection or insulin pump, along with attention to dietary management, typically including carbohydrate tracking, and careful monitoring of blood glucose levels using Glucose meters.
Untreated Type 1 diabetes can lead to one form of diabetic coma, diabetic ketoacidosis, which can be fatal. At present, insulin treatment must be continued for a lifetime; this will change if better treatment, or a cure, is discovered. Continuous glucose monitors have been developed which can alert patients to the presence of dangerously high or low blood sugar levels, but the lack of widespread insurance coverage has limited the impact these devices have had on clinical practice so far.
In more extreme cases, a pancreas transplant can help restore proper glucose regulation. However, the surgery and accompanying immunosuppression required is considered by many physicians to be more dangerous than continued insulin replacement therapy and is therefore often used only as a last resort (such as when a kidney must also be transplanted or in cases where the patient’s blood glucose levels are extremely volatile). Experimental replacement of beta cells (by transplant or from stem cells) is being investigated in several research programs and may become clinically available in the future. Thus far, beta cell replacement has only been performed on patients over age 18, and with tantalizing successes amidst nearly universal failure.
→Pancreas transplantation
Main article: Pancreas transplantation
Pancreas transplants are generally recommended if a kidney transplant is also necessary. The reason for this is that introducing a new kidney requires taking immunosuppressive drugs anyway, and this allows the introduction of a new, functioning pancreas to a patient with diabetes without any additional immunosuppressive therapy. However, pancreas transplants alone can be wise in patients with extremely labile type 1 diabetes mellitus.
→Artificial Pancreas
Main article: Artificial pancreas
→Islet cell transplantation
Main article: Islet cell transplantation
Less invasive than a pancreas transplant, islet cell transplantation is currently the most highly used approach in humans to temporarily cure type 1 diabetes.
In one variant of this procedure, islet cells are injected into the patient’s liver, where they take up residence and begin to produce insulin. The liver is expected to be the most reasonable choice because it is more accessible than the pancreas, and the islet cells seem to produce insulin well in that environment. The patient’s body, however, will treat the new cells just as it would any other introduction of foreign tissue. The immune system will attack the cells as it would a bacterial infection or a skin graft. Thus, the patient also needs to undergo treatment involving immunosuppressants, which reduce immune system activity.
Recent studies have shown that islet cell transplants have progressed to the point that 58% of the patients in one study were insulin independent one year after the operation.[4] Ideally, it would be best to use islet cells which will not provoke this immune reaction, but investigators are also looking into placing islets into a protective coating which enables insulin to flow out while protecting the islets from white blood cells.
Original source :→ WIKIPEDIA
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