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Dr. Kim Mulvihill ReportingA new government report reveals how diabetes continues to be epidemic in America. In just five years, the incidence of type two diabetes has jumped 41-percent. This type of Diabetes is fueled primarily by obesity, but some people are born with a different type. An experimental procedure may give the those sufferers hope.
Ivan: "Without having the time to react, I would pass out"
For years, Ivan Barriaga lived in constant fear and danger.
Ivan Barriaga: "I actually passed out while driving, so it was a life or death situation."
The 35-year old from San Francisco was diagnosed with type one diabetes in college. But his disease quickly became what doctors call "brittle":
Ivan Barriaga: "My blood sugar would suddenly drop and I wouldn't have time to treat myself."
With type 1 diabetes, certain cells in the pancreas - contained in clusters called islets - don't make enough insulin. In Ivan's case, even with insulin injections, his blood sugar levels fluctuated wildly and without warning.
Andrew Posselt, MD, PhD, Islet Cell Transplant Surgeon: "He is not aware of his sugars dropping very low and that can be the most dangerous thing."
For patients with brittle diabetes, the only option today is a pancreas transplant. That's major surgery with a long recovery period and a risk of serious complications. Well, now an experimental procedure could accomplish the same goal without surgery.
The experimental procedure, done at UCSF, temporarily reverses diabetes. It involves a different kind of transplant, the injection of hundreds of thousands of islets, essentially donated cells that work just fine.
The islets are harvested from a donor cadaver.
Dr. Posselt: "There are about a million in a pancreas. When we isolate islets and really do a good job, and the organ is a very good organ, we can usually get about 6-hundred thousand of those."
The islets are purified and then transplanted via an infusion, directly into a patient's liver.
Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD, USSF Diabetes Center Director: "They percolate in the liver. They get deep down into the capillaries and they get stuck."
There, they begin to produce insulin, reversing a patient's diabetes.
Ivan Barriaga: "In my case, I've been insulin free with two transplants."
Dr. Posselt: "The recovery is very quick."
But there can be problems: patients need to gulp a handful of pills every day to ward off rejection, and only two out of every three pancreases lead to islets that are good enough to transplant.
Dr. Bluestone: "There aren't enough pancreases out there."
Scientists say the future is to come up with another source of islets.
Dr. Bluestone: "Whether that source comes from adult or embryonic stem cells, or that source comes from another species, we need to have more islets to be able to do this routinely for everybody. "
Ivan Barriaga: "I'm truly blessed."
Ivan is grateful to be one of the lucky few.
Ivan Barriaga: "Every second I don't have to take insulin, and to be able to be part of research to cause a cure, is something I'll eternally be grateful for."
