Experimental Diabetes Treatments: If at First You Don't Succeed:

There are new studies being done constantly which may help lead to a cure for Type-1 diabetes. Type-2 diabetes is most often caused by poor diet and lack of exercise. These things change the way your body reacts to the insulin your body already produces. However Type-1 diabetes is caused when the pancreas does not produce enough or any insulin at all. So far, there are no experimental studies being done on Type-2 diabetes.

A recent study being done by the Mayo Clinic is focusing on Islet Cell Transplant. This transplant study is still in experimental stages. Some people who suffer from Type-1 diabetes maybe eligible to enroll in the experimental trials, however. Islet Cell transplant is done by taking only the insulin producing islet cells from a donor pancreas and then transplanting them into the patients body, according to the Mayo Clinic staff.

These cells are harvested from donor pancreases. They typically need islet cells from at least two pancreases in order to perform the transplant. The surgeon uses a tube to feed the cells down into the portal vein in the liver, where they then reside in the small blood vessels of the liver and help to produce insulin. Because this is such a new procedure in the United States, there are very few places it can be done, and the requirements are very stringent. To be eligible, you will need to be part of a clinical trial or suffer serious complications which may lead the doctors to believe the best chance for survival is this treatment.

In 2006, a Mayo Clinic study of 36 islet cell recipients revealed that 40 percent of those patients were completely off of insulin within one year. At the three year mark, 17 percent of those same 36 patients were still off of all insulin dependency.

There is never a guarantee with any experimental treatments. Those interested in trying experimental treatments usually are required to go through a selection process. Primary care physicians often have information on local experimental treatment options, however. Islet cell transplant treatment is no different. Your body could reject the transplant or you could have recurrent diabetic problems, which can kill the islet cells causing you to lapse back into being insulin dependant. To find out about clinical trials you can search the Web as well as information at the Mayo Clinic and other well known research sites.