Beta-cell regeneration in human pancreas: the lessons of pancreatic pathology.

Diabetes mellitus has been tradition ally classified as Type I and Type 2 on the basis ofseveral criteria that generally reflect either insulin deficiency or functional defects in insulin secret ion. In this chapter, we propose a new classification diabetes based on age of onset, body mass index and biomarkers such as islet autoantibodies and DR HLA alleles. In the second part of this chapter, we briefly discuss some novel hypotheses on the possibility of beta-cell regeneration in diabetes in relation to the islet pathology of the disease.