Is there a cure for diabetes

Unfortunately, there is not yet a cure for diabetes. There is much medical work being done in the area, however, and advancements in diabetes control are much more common then they used to be. Insulin was only discovered in 1921, and the progress that we have made since then is remarkable. Although insulin is commonly thought of as the cure for diabetes, it merely allows people with Type I diabetes to survive. Without careful considerations in diet and exercise, people with diabetes often suffer from a host of consequences, with as many as 2 out of 3 diabetics dying as a result of heart problems or a stroke as a result of unstable blood sugar levels.

Scientists are leading the way towards a cure for diabetes. They have determined what needs to be done in order to successfully cure the disease, and are now simply trying to find a compound that meets those needs. The most successful attempts at curing diabetes have been, up to this point, the transplant of another person’s pancreas into the affected person. While this seems like a valid solution, the transplant recipient’s immune system often attacks the foreign pancreas, seeing it as a foreign entity. To that end, people who receive pancreas transplants must take immuno-supressant drugs for the rest of their lives, which can cause such adverse side effects as cancer. One of the most promising hypotheses for a cure for diabetes is the transplantation of insulin-producing cells from a pig to a human. Pigs have been the source of insulin for diabetics for over 75 years, showing that there is some merit for helping humans in the cells of this animal.

Unfortunately, these insulin producing cells known as the islets of Langerhorn are also destroyed upon entry into the recipients immune system. To that end, scientists are working to develop a capsule for which the islets can stay, allowing nutrients and oxygen to enter the islets and insulin to exit them while keeping the immune system’s attacks on the islets at bay.

This procedure has actually already been attempted by Dr. Robert Elliott at a school of medicine in New Zealand. In the experiment, two humans were injected with encapsulated islets from a pig. One of the subjects received no immuno-suppression therapy and the other subject did. The results of the experiment showed no adverse health effects as well as a lowering of blood sugar levels in the patients. While this is a sign of great news, the effects were not complete enough to cause an insulin independence. To that end, the disease was not cured, but extremely lessened.

This shows much hope for the future of diabetics! While this is not concrete evidence of a cure for diabetes, it definitely is expressive of the types of studies being undertaken by diabetes doctors around the planet. The more we research, the closer that we get to the cure. In as few as fifty years, diabetic conditions may be a thing of the past. We can only hope that this research bears further fruition.