A scientist researching a cure for diabetes, probably
To maintain my sanity, whenever I hear someone talk about curing diabetes I keep two things in the back of my mind:
Firstly, for as long as I can remember, a cure for diabetes has always been 10 years away.
Secondly, the press will generally announce a cure for my diabetes once a week, usually based on some shaky evidence involving a 3 day trial on a diabetic mouse and a meerkat where they weren’t given any insulin and then they were run over by a truck, thereby proving that they lived without insulin for 3 days and didn’t die of diabetes.
However, despite the word cure making me a little sceptical, I’m interested in what’s going on out there to try and make up for the ineptitude of my pesky pancreas.
Diatribe (who do a very nice monthly newsletter focussed around research and product developments in diabetes) have produced a 153 page epic on the progress being made towards curing type 1 diabetes. I tend to find these sort of things are written with a distinct bias towards favouring particular areas with the aim of increasing research funds into a particular technique, or are overly optimistic without addressing the realities of life with diabetes.
This is different. Kelly Close and her team have broken down the four main areas of diabetes research into a cure for Type 1 and looked at them with a realistic eye. They look at immune therapeutics, islet and pancreas transplantation, beta cell regeneration and the artificial pancreas. They’ve been clear about where things are blue sky ideas that may come to something in a few decades, and where things are actually a realistic possibility.
The report is pretty easy to read and gave me the best understanding I’ve had for a long time about what’s really going on in the world of Type 1 research. To download a free copy of the report, you just need to join the diatribe mailing list – www.diatribe.us/cure. This is the best overview of research into Type 1 I can ever remember seeing, it’s definitely worth a read.
Great article- shame about the meerkat tho!
One copy downloaded and transferred to my shiny new Kindle to read (I don’t know why I mentioned the Kindle actually. Well I do, I like gadgets. Simple as that!)
I just got a Kindle too. It’s luurvley. But I havent yet progressed to downloading pdfs to go on it. I must give it a go, now you’ve mentioned it….
You can email them directly to [your user name]@free.kindle.com – works a treat. Ohh, ohh, keep an eye on http://www.stripykat.com – funky new Kindle cases coming soon!
How did I turn discussion on Alison’s article into a plug for my wife’s website in so few comments? Good work, me!
I do not have a kindle, but I do have an ipad. Have been thoroughly enjoying it since OH gave tit to me as my 30th wedding anniversary present. He knew technology would please me more than yucky roses. I will read it when I have the time!
Actually, he gave ‘IT’ to me. Not tit. I’m sure you knew this, but thought I’d better make that extra clear.
Well this just hit my inbox from the IEEE this morning (sorry for the url shortener):
http://bit.ly/nPx748
I think I read a similar article by snail mail newsletter when I was first diagnosed all those years ago so I’m not holding my breath!
@furrypaul Ah glucose reading tattoos, the one tattoo I would consider having. They’ve been at this for decades, but I suppose if they keep trying they might get there one day.