The history of diabetes treatment began in Toronto in 1922, when a very thin 14 -year -old girl named Elizabeth Hughes Gossett began receiving insulin doses from Frederick Banting.The genesis of the history of healing this disease was still delayed a few decades, and is being written now between the walls of some laboratories in California, Massachusetts, Vancouver and Seville.
In the latter it is that Bernat Soria, former Minister of Health and one of the worldwide pioneer researchers in the development of cell therapies to combat diabetes and its complications, and who yesterday was the protagonist of the Culture Classroom of El Comercio-The voice, an activity coordinated by Armando Arias and sponsored by Cofés Toscaf, where he shared his latest experiments and lines of research.
Cabimer, its modest Andalusian laboratory, has already been able to give some encouraging results, in the line of the proposals of its American and Canadian colleagues, such as the creation of insulin producing cells from human embryonic stem cells, but also solutions forstop the progression of diabetes in still premature states and diabetic foot gangrene.
«Since 2009 we have treated a hundred patients to stop the progression of the gangrene of the diabetic foot»
"We are still far from the healing of diabetes, but we are seeing things that approach a lot," said Soria.One of the most promising essays is taking place in California right now, where in October 2014 a patient producing cells were implanted."The progress of the project is a secret, but the essay has not stopped and another forty patients have already approved, and that is a good sign," he said in his talk yesterday.
In Cabimer he has also performed tests with good results, although in this case "with adult stem cells of the patient himself" to try to avoid the amputation of the foot, a very common problem in diabetic patients."Since 2009 we have treated a hundred people," said the researcher.And since then they have been able to verify an obvious improvement, with a decrease in ulcers and also of ischemic pain."The control group, which no cells were administered, could not even sleep, but the improvement was significant in the rest of the patients," he said.The stem cells managed to produce new arteries, a milestone and immense hope for the sick
In a few months, perhaps next year, the Soria team in Seville also expects to have the authorization to apply another cell therapy to diabetics.In this case, they will be "very safe cord cells and without side effects", which could stop the progress of the disease.This experiment will be done with young people and, therefore, with greater capacity for cell regeneration, although adults, and who have been diagnosed in the previous six months.«How long can diabetes stop?Between six months and one year, and then we will inject another dose.Thus we will be delaying the process, ”said Soria yesterday.
With treatments like this, diabetes is chronified, and patients can forget about insulin puncture, glucose controls and, above all, the tremendous complications that this disease has, and that include eye injuries, heart problems or disorders or disordersof the nervous system.It is not anything, especially because it affects more than 400 million people worldwide, and costs around 600,000 million euros each year.
four million patients
They are huge figures, and that if they move to the Spanish case, they involve around 4 million patients, who consume about 6,000 million euros per year.«It is 10% of the cost ofhealth system, ”warned the former minister.The numbers are important, and they continue to be when the research issue is addressed."There have been twenty clinical trials to stop the cause of diabetes that stopped in phase 1, and each of them cost more than 100 million euros," he said.
And it is precisely because of the high cost of essays and their own treatments that Soria expressed their conviction that these investigations have to be in charge "of a public-private consortium", because, otherwise "it will be very expensive andAlmost no one can access these treatments, ”he lamented.
His group applied a treatment similar to California to mice, "and we managed to normalize their blood glucose levels for about forty weeks, which is approximately half of his life," he said.The healing of diabetes can still be distant, as it says, but the road has already marked.The story continues its course and sails among some proper names such as that of this jovial and affable of Carlet, a small town of Alicante who has just appointed a favorite son a few days ago.
«10 or 15 years ago the associations of patients and, above all, the parents of the children with diabetes asked me if it would always be like that, and would ever be cured.I can tell you today that it will be much better than now, and that our discoveries are already arriving at the clinic, ”he said yesterday in Aviles.
Elizabeth Hughes Gossett saved her life and reached up to 81 years thanks to 42,000 doses of insulin.Others will do so in the future thanks to stem cells and thanks to investigations such as those yesterday Soria detailed in the Culture Classroom of El Comercio-La Voz.
