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Umbilical Cord Stem Cells Successful in Treatment of Type 1 Diabetes

Amazingly, stem cell treatments using umbilical and adult stem cells continue to show great progress.

By Hilary White

CHICAGO, June 29, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) � A new US study offers insights into the way stem cells from umbilical cord blood can be used to successfully treat diabetes. Researchers at the University of Florida College of Medicine studied twenty children aged between two and seven with type 1 diabetes, seven of whom were injected with cord blood cells. The researchers concluded that the study suggests that the cells �jump-start� and correct the patient�s own immune system.

"This is the first attempt at using cord blood as a potential therapy for type 1 diabetes. We hope these cells can either lessen the immune system's attack on the pancreas or possibly introduce stem cells that can differentiate into insulin-producing cells," said the lead researcher, Dr. Michael Haller.

]]> Type 1 diabetes occurs when the immune system starts destroying insulin-producing cells in the pancreas needed to control blood sugar. It can result in heart disease, blindness, kidney disease and death.

The children treated with umbilical cord cells needed an average of 35 per cent less insulin over the following six months, compared with those not given stem cell infusions.

The study was presented yesterday at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association in Chicago, where researchers cautioned against an overreaction. They said the treatment was not a cure and that the cause of the immune process in diabetes was still unknown, but Dr. Haller said that his team has reason for �cautious optimism.�

Another member of the team, Dr. Desmond Schatz, said, �We expect this effect will be transient, but we will be able to use it in other combinations of therapies.�

Juvenile diabetes is one of the most frequently cited diseases in media reports on the potential for stem cells to cure diseases; but news outlets rarely distinguish between cells taken from embryos or foetuses and the patients� own bodies. Numerous studies have shown that stem cells taken from the patient�s own body--sometimes called somatic stem cells--as well as umbilical cord cells, produce favourable results for a number of illnesses, while the results from embryonic stem cells remain uncertain at best.

In late May, researchers from the University of Texas reported they had engineered adult stem cells derived from human umbilical cord blood that were able to produce insulin. �This discovery tells us that we have the potential to produce insulin from adult stem cells to help people with diabetes,� said Dr. Randall J. Urban, senior author of the paper.

One biotechnology company in Houston, Texas, announced in 2005 that it was exclusively using adult stem cells in its diabetes research. PharmaFrontiers developed a method of extracting stem cells from a patient�s own blood. Patrick Linbeck, a representative of the company said that like embryonic cells, stem cells from blood have been differentiated into every type of stem cell in the body, without the ethical or medical problems presented by embryo cells.

Diabetes Risk Factors

The top nine are published here.

Adult Stem Cells Treat Eye Disease

British experts are pioneering a treatment using stem cell therapy to improve the sight of people born with a rare genetic eye disorder. Stem cells taken from dead donors, living relatives or even the patients themselves are grown in a laboratory until they form sheets and then transplanted on to the surface of the cornea. - more here

Yes, chalk another one up for adult stem cells, the kind that don't involve the destruction of a human life.

Five-fold increase in Diabetes

Investigators in the UK report that the incidence of diabetes among children under the age of five has increase dramatically in recent years:

The number of British children under five diagnosed with a specific type of diabetes has risen five-fold over 20 years due to unidentified environmental factors, a study said on Friday.

[snip]

"This could either mean that we are being exposed to something new, or that we now have reduced exposure to something that was previously controlling our immune responses," said Professor Polly Bingley from Bristol University.

"We now need to work to identify what these changes might be," she added.

As mentioned above, they're not certain why but the evidence suggests either and environmental factor and a change in the lifestyle and health of the population.

Hoax of Dodos

Pro-Life Legislation Reduced Abortion Rates

Between 1985 and 1999 the abortion rate among minors has fallen by 50% and yet has received relatively little attention. According to a new study published by the Heritage Foundation, pro-life legislation is a contributing factor leading to the observed decline in abortion among minors.

Global Cooling was a Myth

It took 31 years, but Newsweek magazine admitted it was incorrect about climate change. In a nearly 1,000-word correction, Senior Editor Jerry Adler finally agreed that a 1975 piece on global cooling "was so spectacularly wrong about the near-term future."

Degrading Science

Check out Wesley Smith's insightful commentary on the de-evolution of science:

WHEN CRITICS BEMOAN the politicization of science, they usually point a bitter finger at the Bush administration. Their condemnation should actually be aimed in the opposite direction. Increasingly, it is the scientists themselves--or better stated the leaders of the science sector--who are devolving science from the apolitical pursuit of knowledge into a distinctly ideological enterprise.

The creation of a new 527 advocacy PAC called Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA) is the latest example of this phenomenon. SEA claims to be entering the political fray because the nation's leaders "systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research." But most of the problems SEA identifies on its website as supposedly threatening science are actually disputes about ethics, philosophy, or social theory--areas of human concern that are not within the scientific realm.

Neil Armstrong said 'a'

The 40+ year debate has apparently ended with speech recognition software confirming what Neil Armstrong maintained all along:

High-tech detective work apparently has found the missing "a" in one of the most famous phrases ever spoken.

Astronaut Neil Armstrong's first words from the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, now can be confidently recast, according to the research, as, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

Houston Chronicle

The Population Crisis

No, not overpopulation, which some labeled as the most daunting challenge mankind faces. The Population Research Institute explains:

The idea that the world population experienced a dramatic boom in the proportion of young people after World War II due to decreased childhood mortality and other improved living conditions, necessitating population control measures that saved us
from an unsustainable infestation of rugrats, is not true. �At the world level, the population in 1950 was relatively young, having 34% of its members under age 15 and barely 8% aged 60 or over,� says UNDP. This was despite the fertility decline of the Great Depression and the massive loss of young lives in World War II. �Between 1950 and 1975, as mortality decline accelerated, particularly in the less developed regions, both the proportion under age 15 and that aged 60 or over increased, to reach 37% and about 9% respectively. Overall, therefore, the population of the world became slightly younger from 1950 to 1975.� So the world remained in demographic balance, and major demographic changes did not take place until after 1975�after population control and feminism had begun to take firm hold in most of the world.

And now population control has lead to the specter of rapid population aging and attendant social and economic decline as fewer and fewer workers attempt to support more and more elderly, first in the First World, then globally. The UNDP urges that action be taken soon, before the crisis gets out of hand. What did those at the pinnacle of the international community in influence and funds have to say on World Population Day 2006?

Attacking CPCs

For decades pregnancy centers have sustained waves of attacks from abortion providers and proponent groups who routinely seek to discredit their competition. These groups have tried to limit women from accessing comprehensive information on abortion risks and alternatives, which is provided through the free and confidential services offered by the doctors, nurses, and professional volunteers at pregnancy centers.

The latest coordinated string of attacks began late in December 2005 with a report issued by NARAL Pro-Choice Texas entitled Crisis Pregnancy Centers: A Hidden Threat to Women's Health? Since then, the attacks have continued with additional reports issued by the National Abortion Federation and other groups who are angered that pregnancy centers have begun to compete for federal grants that enable them to present abstinence-based educational programs, instead of the "safe-sex" programs that such groups tellingly support. Additional IYD grants have been awarded to a small number of pregnancy centers to enable them to enable them to provide medical services to low income women.

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Federal Judge Dismisses Case Challenging National Motto

A California federal trial judge has dismissed the lawsuit filed by Michael Newdow challenging the constitutionality of our national motto, �In God We Trust.� Newdow is the atheist who achieved national attention in his previous unsuccessful attempt to remove the Pledge of Allegiance from public schools because it includes the words �one nation under God.�

The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, had filed a friend of the court brief seeking the dismissal of Newdow�s national motto lawsuit.

]]> Edward L. White III, the Thomas More Law Center�s trial counsel who submitted the friend of the court brief, commented: �Our national motto does not have the constitutionally impermissible effect of establishing a religion. Rather, it acknowledges our nation�s rich religious heritage, which informed the founding of our nation.�

The federal trial judge ruled that the national motto has nothing to do with the establishment of a religion. The judge noted that the use of the national motto is patriotic and has no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise.

Religious Mystics

It is characteristic of mysticism that it makes its appeal to the feelings as the sole, or at least as the normative, source of knowledge of divine things. That is to say, it is the religious sentiment which constitutes for it the source of religious knowledge. Of course mystics differ with one another in the consistency with which they apply their principle. And of course they differ with one another in the account they give of this religious sentiment to which they make their appeal. There are, therefore, many varieties of mystics, pure and impure, consistent and inconsistent, naturalistic and supernaturalistic, pantheistic and theistic � even Christian. What is common to them all, and what makes them all mystics, is that they all rest on the religious sentiment as the source of knowledge of divine things.

More Here

Jesus: Divine or Da Vinci? A Biblical Response to 'The Da Vinci Code'

Is Jesus the Divine Son of God as recorded in the New Testament? Or is Jesus a mortal man as identified in the popular book The Da Vinci Code? Mahoney Media Group Inc. presents �Jesus: Divine or Da Vinci?�, an invaluable resource and powerful defense of biblical Christianity. The �Jesus: Divine or Da Vinci?� DVD can be found in Christian bookstores nationwide and is also distributed internationally.

]]> Attacks on the foundations of the Christian faith have stirred a firestorm of debate over the validity of the New Testament. This new DVD addresses the integrity and historicity of the New Testament documents and shows that they are based upon eyewitness accounts of Jesus� ministry and miracles, and that they have the greatest levels of integrity of all ancient literature. It clearly presents the logical, historical and scientific evidence for believing in the person of Jesus Christ and is easy to understand yet entertaining.

�Christianity is a historical faith � basing its truth on the claim that we can know God exists because He came to earth physically as the man Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago...if that�s not true, then the very heart of Christianity is torn out and Christianity fails to be the unique religion that it is because of these claims of the incarnation of Jesus Christ,� said Dr. Donald A. Bierle, President of Faith Studies International and national speaker. In this DVD, Dr. Bierle exposes and refutes the fallacies in The Da Vinci Code by using historical texts and archaeological discoveries. Dr. Bierle has advanced degrees in both the life sciences (M.A. and Ph.D.) and New Testament studies (M.A.). Dr. Bierle has authored several books and video series including two practical apologetic books on faith, Surprised by Faith and FaithSearch.

Source: Press Release

Intelligent Design Under Fire

In a rare opportunity, leading proponents of the intelligent design movement have invited their critics to ask them the hard questions about the validity of intelligent design theory on Friday, May 12 at Biola University.

The question of intelligent design has flooded the news this year with the Dover, Penn. trial over the place of ID in public education. With many questions still left unanswered about ID theory, this event will allow the public access to hear from top ID experts and its critics.

The event will be held in the format of a press conference. Panelists representing ID include Mike Behe, Professor of Biochemistry, Lehigh University and Senior Fellow Discovery Institute; Paul Nelson, Adjunct Professor, Biola University; Guillermo Gonzales, Assistant Research Professor of Astronomy, Iowa State University; Jonathan Wells, Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute; and Steve Meyer, Director and Senior Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute, Seattle.

Those cross-examining the panelists will include: Antony Flew, noted philosopher; Keith Morrison of Dateline NBC; and faculty from Cal State Fullerton: Bruce H. Weber, Ph.D. Professor of Biochemistry; James R. Hofmann, Ph.D. Professor and Chair, Liberal Studies Department; and Craig M. Nelson, Ph.D. Lecturer, Department of Comparative Religion.

The event will be held in Sutherland Auditorium at Biola University from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. More than 1,000 attendees are expected.