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Asked by allhailbirks to Keith, Derek, Elaine, Heather on 26 Jun 2013. This question was also asked by galmpton.
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Keith Siew answered on 26 Jun 2013:
Yes but it depends on what type of diabetes we’re talking about…
I think diabetes type 1 will be an easier condition to cure as the cells that produce insulin in the pancreas have been destroyed… if we further develop stem cell technology it may be possible to implant new pancreatic cells that would produce insulin, effectively curing type 1 diabetes (assuming that the same thing that killed the cells in the first place doesn’t do it again… so you may need to take immunosuppressants to prevent your immune system damaging the new cells).
When it comes to type 2 diabetes it can be a much more complex disease with multiple stages… initially you get glucose intolerance and don’t get the insulin response you should normally get with higher blood sugar levels… so your body makes more insulin to cope…. then eventually the body (skeletal muscle cells and fat cells in particular) can become resistant to the insulin and it eventually not longer works… then you get the problem that the pancreas is not capable of producing such high levels of insulin long term and it eventually fatigues and gets damaged and the levels of insulin drop… so its a much bigger set of problems… so a “cure” would require alot more work and I’m not sure how you’d even begin to address all the different problems on a hormonal and cellular level… I think more advanced treatments to manage the disease are more likely… but really prevention is the simplest “cure” or solution to diabetes type 2!!! So watch what you eat and lifestyle
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Elaine Marshall answered on 26 Jun 2013:
Keith is right – prevention is more likely in teh short term, especially for type 2. However stem cell work is moving in the right direction to developing a cure so fingers crossed we are not too far away from from finding something
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Heather Eyre answered on 27 Jun 2013:
I had a similar conversation with someone in one of the chats and thought I’d already answered this question!
Anyway. Be cause Type 1 diabetes is about not being able to make insulin to ‘cure’ the condition you need a way of getting insulin to be released in to the blood when needed. This could be by implanting a little device, or pump, that releases insulin in a similar way to the pancreatic beta-cells that that the person no longer has. The problem is that the pump would probably need replacing a few times during a lifetime. An alternative is either a transplant, or to use stem cells to replace the missing cells: but there is always the chance of rejection.
Curing type2 diabetes is much more complex. It’s not an on/off disease. It develops slowly, and there are a lot of changes along the way that we may never be able to reverse properly. That means that although we may find a way to control the diabetes we might not be able to fully reverse it. Diet and exercise are one of the best ways of controlling type 2 diabetes. Even on medications the effect of a healthy diet and exercise is really important.
Eating well, and being active, are great ways to reduce your risk of type2 diabetes. And if you don’t develop it then it won’t neared to be cured!
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