A woman from Tianjin, China recently became the first person to have her Type 1 diabetes successfully cured through a pioneering stem cell procedure.

After treatment, she shared, “I can eat sugar now,” marking an important step forward in diabetes research.

Unlike type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to lifestyle factors, type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition where the body’s immune system destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

This forces patients to rely on exogenous insulin and immunosuppressants for management. Until now, the closest option for treatment was islet-cell transplantation, but the shortage of donor cells made this an impractical solution.

In this case, Chinese researchers used the woman’s own stem cells, reprogramming them into insulin-producing islet cells. The stem cells were injected into the abdominal muscles, a new site for such a procedure, allowing researchers to monitor their activity with MRI.

Stem cells are unique cells capable of self-renewal and differentiation into various specialized cell types for tissue repair.

Within two and a half months, the patient began producing enough insulin to manage his diabetes without external insulin. She has maintained this insulin production for more than a year.

The stem cell procedure involves removing healthy stem cells from bone marrow, blood or umbilical cord blood. These cells are transplanted into the patient after chemotherapy or radiation to replace damaged or diseased cells. The process includes testing, harvesting, conditioning, planting and recovery.

This method has shown promising results.

The first successful trial was conducted on a 59-year-old man, who started producing insulin within three months of treatment and had blood sugar levels almost normal within four months.

Transplant surgeon James Shapiro of the University of Alberta in Canada called the results “astonishing”, noting that the patient’s diabetes was completely reversed.

Daisuke Yabe, a diabetes expert at Kyoto University, praised the potential of the study, saying, “If it can be applied to other patients, it would be revolutionary.”

Although the results are encouraging, researchers remain cautious.

Since the woman was already taking immunosuppressants due to a previous liver transplant, it is unclear whether the new islet cells would be affected by the same autoimmune response that caused her diabetes.

The research team, led by Dr. Deng Hongqu of Peking University, plans to expand the trial later this year, aiming to include 20 participants.

The patient will reach the important two-year post-treatment milestone in November, and if his condition remains stable, it could mark a major leap forward in the treatment of type 1 diabetes.