Type 1 is treated with insulin replacement therapy—usually by insulin injection or insulin pump, along with attention to dietary management, typically including carbohydrate tracking, and careful monitoring of blood glucose levels using glucose meters. Today the most common insulins are biosynthetic products produced using genetic recombination techniques; formerly, cattle or pig insulins were used, and even sometimes insulin from fish. Major global suppliers include Eli Lilly and Company, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi-Aventis. A more recent trend, from several suppliers, is insulin analogs which are slightly modified insulins which have different onset of action times or duration of action times.
Untreated type 1 diabetes commonly leads to coma, often from diabetic ketoacidosis, which is fatal if untreated. Continuous glucose monitors have been developed and marketed which can alert patients to the presence of dangerously high or low blood sugar levels, but technical limitations have limited the impact these devices have had on clinical practice so far.
In more extreme cases, a pancreas transplant can restore proper glucose regulation. However, the surgery and accompanying immunosuppression required is considered by many physicians to be more dangerous than continued insulin replacement therapy, and is therefore often used only as a last resort (such as when a kidney must also be transplanted, or in cases where the patient's blood glucose levels are extremely volatile). Experimental replacement of beta cells (by transplant or from stem cells) is being investigated in several research programs. Thus far, beta cell replacement has only been performed on patients over age 18, and with tantalizing successes amidst nearly universal failure.
Pancreas transplantation
Pancreas transplants are generally performed together with or some time after a kidney transplant. One reason for this is that introducing a new kidney requires taking immunosuppressive drugs such as cyclosporin. Nevertheless this allows the introduction of a new, functioning pancreas to a patient with diabetes without any additional immunosuppressive therapy. However, pancreas transplants alone can be wise in patients with extremely labile type 1 diabetes mellitus. Scientists have found another alternative mode of pancreas transplantation through the use of xenografts especially from animals such as pigs. This alternative mode of transplantation from animals provides an alternative therapy for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes.
Islet cell transplantation
Islet cell transplantation is expected to be less invasive than a pancreas transplant which is currently the most commonly used approach in humans.
In one variant of this procedure, islet cells are injected into the patient's liver, where they take up residence and begin to produce insulin. The liver is expected to be the most reasonable choice because it is more accessible than the pancreas, and islet cells seem to produce insulin well in that environment. The patient's body, however, will treat the new cells just as it would any other introduction of foreign tissue, unless a method is developed to produce them from the patient's own stem cells or there is an identical twin available who can donate stem cells. The immune system will attack the cells as it would a bacterial infection or a skin graft. Thus, patients now also need to undergo treatment involving immunosuppressants, which reduce immune system activity.
Recent studies have shown that islet cell transplants have progressed to the point that 58% of the patients in one study were insulin independent one year after islet cell transplant. Ideally, it would be best to use islet cells which will not provoke this immune reaction, but scientists in New Zealand are also looking into placing them within a protective housing derived of seaweed which enables insulin to flow out and nutrients to flow in while protecting the islets from immune system attack via white blood cells.