Seaweed offers treatment hope for diabetics

John's friend Janice has had an aussie first operation breaking ground in diabetes!!
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Australian scientists are hoping that seaweed can help treat type-I diabetes, one of the most common illnesses.

It is early days but if successful it could mean patients no longer have to inject insulin or take anti-rejection drugs.

Janice Stewart is the first patient in Australia to try a new procedure that might put all that to an end.

Ms Stewart has battled diabetes since she was a child, having to have inject insulin four times a day.

Doctors from the Prince of Wales Hospital and the University of New South Wales extracted insulin-producing cells from a donated pancreas.

The breakthrough in this process is the use of seaweed. The cells were placed in tiny capsules coated in seaweed and injected into Ms Stewart's abdomen.

"There are pores on the surface of the capsules which allow nutrients to come in but are too small to allow immune cells, which would destroy the cells to enter," Prince of Wales Hospital spokesman Professor Bernie Tuch said.

As immune cells cannot penetrate the seaweed, the patient does not have to take anti-rejection drugs that can cause serious side effects.

The procedure has worked on animals like mice and pigs.

Six Australian patients will undergo the new procedure, doctors will know in two or three days if the treatment is successful.

Doctors hope the cells will keep producing insulin meaning Ms Stewart can cut back or stop injections altogether.

"I feel I had nothing to lose - at the worst I would be on less insulin at the best I would be off it," she said.

Professor Bernie Tuch says in the best case scenario it could be possible for diabetics like Ms Stewart could come off insulin.

Doctors hope the treatment will help the 130,000 Australians who have type-I diabetes.