The Good News

Intensive research is proceeding on a number of fronts, and it is quite likely that a cure for insulin dependent diabetes will be discovered in the next decade or so. The scientist who discovers how to "turn off' the abnormal immune response – to stop the body mistaking the insulin-producing beta cells for foreign bodies and destroying them – will have made a medical advance equal to or greater than Banting's discovery of insulin. Genetic research may allow doctors to identify those most at risk of developing diabetes, and work is also being done on investigating the role of viruses in triggering insulin dependent diabetes. Pancreas transplants are already a reality (as a double operation with kidney transplants for patients with kidney failure), and experimental work has been done on transplanting insulin-producing cells into people with diabetes. Treatment of complications, blood testing and drug therapy is increasingly refined and sophisticated.

Until the day a cure is found, however, careful control remains the key to managing diabetes. Diagnosis of diabetes, as we've seen, is the beginning of a lifelong contract to look after yourself. Without turning into a nervous invalid, its fair to say that from now on you must pay particular attention to most aspects of your life, particularly those involving eating. There are no guarantees with a disease like diabetes; but, while life may lose a certain spontaneity, there's no reason, if you control your diabetes instead of allowing it to control you, why it should lose quality. In fact, given that the diet and exercise recommendations given to people with diabetes are those suggested for every Americans, you may well end up healthier and feeling better than you have years (often better than your non-diabetic peers).

Living with diabetes is not easy, but it is more manageable now than ever, thanks to modern technology. There are very good drugs available to help control it and there is excellent treatment to reduce the risk or severity of complications. There's no denying it's a long, hard grind but, if you have diabetes, you have every right to congratulate yourself. Not because you have it, but because you've taken charge — you're coping with diet, you're coping with medication, you're coping with testing.