Living Life With Diabetes

Pig Islets Still Producing Insulin in Diabetic Man

A man name Michael Helyer, from New Zealand with type 1 diabetes received a transplant of pig islets. Mr. Helyer received the alginate-encapsulated neonatal pig islet cell injection into his abdomen in 1996, at age 41. The transplant went well and the piglets worked to reduce his insulin dosage. Even though his insulin had returned to pre-transplant levels at the 49th week an improvement in the control continued. His A1c test from fourteen months later had shown to be 7.8% compared to a previous 9.3%.