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They're still trying folks...

Interesting read.

I feel better automated management and vaccination is closer than a cure. I have heard of people on experimental software with CGM's and pumps automatically supplying bolus insulin and that Google are working on a CGM measuring tears. Unfortunately, these sorts of things can be very costly when launched.
 
The issue with all of these stories talking about prevention when applying solutions is that they are done in a lab where the onset of T1D is a known variable and is induced. They always miss the point which is there is not yet a method to identify those who will develop T1 other than the hereditary model, which doesn't work if there's no family history!
 
Zerospam: I agree with you on that. Non-invasive glucose testing at a reasonable price is my favourite for improving everyone's life soonest... but the artificial pancreas ideas are coming thick and fast. Affordability will be the key though, in these 'austere' times.

tim2000s: Agreed also... if, as I was told, adult onset type one tends to be viral rather than genetic, that's going to be a hard find. The genetic approach would be brilliant for all of the youngsters who develop it.
 

Yes, I always think this. When I got diabetes I remember being astounded that nobody knew exactly what caused it. I interrogated my consultant for quite some time about this : D She told me Type 1 was 20% genetic, 80% environmental, meaning that lots of people could have the genes but wouldn't get diabetes (she described it as having a bomb inside) because it required something environmental to light the fuse.

Until they discover what thing or things trigger T1 then I find it hard to understand how they'll find a cure. We've had insulin all these years (thank god) and yet no-one knows what causes the immune attack. That niggles away at me every time I think about it. My consultant suggested some suspects, but that was it. I was really expecting her to ask me some questions just for info about possible triggers, but nothing : (

That brown fat story is very interesting. Sometimes I dream (or have nightmares) that the cause/cure is actually something relatively simple, and we've spent all these years looking in the wrong place or not asking the right questions.
 
@azure I had a similar discussion with a consultant about six months ago. His view was that they had a fairly good range of genetic and racial indicators for T2 and they believed that it was not too long before they could develop a screening test for it.

T1 on the other hand was, as you say, not so easy. The indications from the work done relating to the vaccine approach are that whilst the vaccine reduces the number of T-Cells that attack the pancreas, it doesn't stop them completely, or it doesn't stop whatever causes them to be created. So far it's only proven to be effective up to 15 months and requires regular injections.

There also doesn't seem to have been, until recently at least, a systematic attempt to record what had happened in the 12-18 months previous to diagnosis of type one to determine whether there are any patterns.
 
@tim2000s Exactly. There must be something that triggers the attack. Maybe it's different things in different people, or maybe it's an unlucky sequence of two or more things, but surely it must be out there to be found?

One theory I read involved wheat damaging the digestive system, facilitating the entry of elements into the bloodstream that then triggered the immune attack; another was about cows milk; another a virus. I've even read that mistimed vaccinations can do it. But we'll never know if any of those are relevant if no-one gathers even basic info on T1 sufferers. I dream of a database of Type 1s that could provide clues about where to look.

( as an aside, dos anyone remember that young boy who got T1 and was put on a wheat free diet which 'cured' it - at least for a while. Did that 'cure' last? I think the child was Scandinavian but I'm not sure. He was about 6 and his consultant suspected T1 and coeliac disease were more closely linked than we realised, with wheat as an invader)
 
That's interesting. I've found that I've become more intolerant of gluten as I've got older, (although I'm not coeliac) but there wasn't an issue when I was young. There was, however, a bout of proper influenza that took me out for two weeks roughly 15 months before I was diagnosed.
 
I have certainly got no tolerance to gluten.

Had good chat with GP Yest and he and I think the same ...I would need to eat it before a test and make myself ill jyst for the sake of getting "gluten intolerant" on my medical records.
I have no wish to eat gluten foods, so why go through hell just to get a confirmed diagnosis???
 

I tried going gluten-free after reading about that boy. Not at all a scientific test, but I spent three weeks eating wheat and gluten and then three weeks not eating them. I kept my daily schedule the same as far as possible and ate exactly the same carbs for each meal. It didn't cure my diabetes - obviously! But I did notice I kept having lows and needed less insulin those weeks than the weeks I ate wheat and gluten. I also felt better.

I still can't find the article about the boy and the wheat, but when I was googling I did find this article which I'd not seen before. I expect everyone else saw it, but I think it's interesting, in theory. How I long for a relatively simple cure or treatment:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...iotic-pill-rewires-body-scientists-claim.html

Edited to add that I didn't have any flu or virus prior to being diagnosed, but my consultant thought my pancreas had probably been under attack for a while from what I'd told her, and looking back over the previous months and years, I had had some nasty viruses, including a horrible stomach one.
 
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I was diagnosed with type 1 in the early 80's and although my Mum had developed type 1 diabetes in her 30's (developed more than 7 years after the birth of her youngest) they said it was no more than a coincidence I had been diagnosed. When my older brother was diagnosed with type 1 2 years later, the experts still insisted it was a coincidence.

An understanding on the cause of type 1 is certainly better than it was 30 years ago!
 
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