Cadavers Used To Temporarily Reverse Diabetes

Filed in archive Research on April 21, 2006

If you could 'get rid' of diabetes for a month, a week, or even a day, would you? Even if it meant being injected with things that came from dead people?

Many people are willing to do just that, with an experimental procedure that harvests thousands of islets from cadavers, and injects them into diabetes patients. Islets are cells in the pancreas that help create insulin, which diabetics lack.

Once the islets are injected into a living person's liver, they begin to get busy and produce the much-desired insulin. Although often successful, the procedure does not always work, and requires that patients maintain frequent doses of immune-boosting medication. It is, however, easier than going through a pancreas transplant.

What do you think? Would you give it a try?

(Photo Source: Witfits)