New Treatment Stops Type II Diabetes

multicsfan writes Researchers have found that an injection of protein FGF1 stops weight induced diabetes in mice, with no apparent side effects. However, the cure only lasts 2 days at a time. Future research and human trials are needed to better understand and create a working drug. From the story: "The team found that sustained treatment with the protein doesn't merely keep blood sugar under control, but also reverses insulin insensitivity, the underlying physiological cause of diabetes. Equally exciting, the newly developed treatment doesn't result in side effects common to most current diabetes treatments."

Comments

There's another treatment that stops most T2

[AbRASiON]

It's called eating well, exercising and losing a significant amount of weight.
I know, I came very very close to having it. Break the sugar addiction, quadruple your vegetable intake, vastly reduce your sugar / heavy foods intake and do a little, tiny bit of basic light exercise.

In a couple of years, guess what,...?

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[ArmoredDragon]

Sorry but what you say here is a load of crap. Actually no I'm not sorry, it's just a load of crap said by somebody who doesn't know shit about the condition and just wants to find any old reason to attack their eating habits.

Insulin resistance doesn't magically get cured by eating right and exercising. Yes, you can much better manage the symptoms that way, but ultimately they don't go away. At the end of the day you still have to watch your glycemic load, which doesn't necessarily come from sugary foods. In fact several vegetables can cause hyperglycemia in diabetics. Pretty much the only way to avoid that in most cases is to eat so little that you aren't meeting your daily caloric needs, which means you'd need to starve yourself to death in order to avoid taking insulin.

I don't have diabetes, but I've been way overweight (at one point I weighed 290 pounds) and all of the blood tests I took indicated I was nowhere near being diabetic even at THAT time. Yet many other people who have a much lower BMI than I do even right now (I currently weigh 215) and are even younger than I am have type 2 diabetes. The added weight just makes it that much harder for your body to meet its own insulin needs, so losing weight can help manage the symptoms (and in certain cases eliminate them until your later years in life,) but it will never cure it.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you. I bench 285, run 6:25 mile, have 11% body fat, and have been a Type II diabetic since I was 9. Fuck you for shaming people with metabolic disorder.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it prevents MOST instances of Type II BEFORE you end up with a broken endocrine system. Once you pass a certain threshold, however, you're broken, and diet and exercise can help you not need meds, but you're STILL a Type II Diabetic.

This appears to undo part of the damage done- which is a step in the right direction.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Gaygirlie]

I don't have diabetes, but I've been way overweight (at one point I weighed 290 pounds) and all of the blood tests I took indicated I was nowhere near being diabetic even at THAT time. Yet many other people who have a much lower BMI than I do even right now (I currently weigh 215) and are even younger than I am have type 2 diabetes.

I'm at least partially in the same boat. I'm frighteningly obese, but I haven't been even close to having any problems with blood sugar and there's no indication of me developing diabetes in any nearby future. Surprisingly, I also have very low blood cholesterol levels -- many physically fit people with healthy eating habits have several times higher levels. That just goes to show that being overweight doesn't automatically mean diabetic and greasy veins.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Nefarious Wheel]

I'm pretty fit myself, not particularly overweight, an avid motorcyclist (light exercise for many hours at a time) and I'm good with the foods. I'm in my 60's, too. I have Type II. The symptoms can be managed, but I don't particularly enjoy the method. And shaming people for conditions they can't help is not what kind people do.

If they come up with something better than Metaformin, I'm in.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[AbRASiON]

Bullshit, I've been doing it for 2 years now and healthy food is fine, it tastes like food, not random chemicals and slop.

It's actually not that difficult to cook something healthy and quickly in a short amount of time once you actually put the effort in for a couple of months, a quick and simple food routine is great.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Gaygirlie]

Well, I have a problem with how food feels in my mouth and going down, the texture of it matters a lot. The more consistent, predictable, processed feel the food has the more likely I am able to eat it, but alas, healthy food tends to be rough, tangy, contain all sorts of surprises and all that and I just can't stomach it. I just don't know how to make healthy food that tastes *and* feels good.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[ArmoredDragon]

Surprisingly, I also have very low blood cholesterol levels -- many physically fit people with healthy eating habits have several times higher levels.

Yeah; your cholesterol levels are controlled by your liver. GGP comes off to me as being a dietary fanatic, the likes of which I've seen all too often, and they're kind of annoying because they play armchair general about what everybody shall and shall not eat, meanwhile their knowledge of biology and chemistry tends to be really bad, just like GGP's appears to be (or at least, a very VERY bad understanding of what diabetes is.) I remember one dietary fanatic telling me how his cholesterol was high, so he decided to become a vegetarian. I don't know whether or not he solved that problem, but if he did the vegetarian diet had very little to do with it, but he's just going on being smug anyways. (In fact the Harvard Study vegetarians frequently cite about read meat being "bad" doesn't actually suggest this, instead it shows a link between people with uncontrolled diets and various diseases...but interestingly it also suggests a link between vegetarian diets and high cholesterol, which they never acknowledge.)

In fact, in recent years we've found that dietary cholesterol has very little impact on blood cholesterol, and may even have no impact at all. What we have found to influence it is saturated fats; less of them will reduce your blood cholesterol. More unsaturated fats will also reduce it (i.e. omega-3.) Exercise also effects it. However dietary changes and exercise have been only found to reduce blood cholesterol by about 30% in the best case scenarios. Beyond that, statin therapy is very effective. People who claim to be "naturalists" (ironically none of them can seem to even agree what the word "natural" means) often tell me how I shouldn't be taking these pills, but I take lovastatin and as a result my cholesterol levels are well within normal range whereas before that and my triglycerides were really high (typically tryglicerides are high when you take in too many calories, which given I am losing weight rather quickly rather quickly, that simply can't be the case; the liver doing something it isn't supposed to be doing however would explain it perfectly.) No side effects either.

GGP types also tend to be those anti-GMO, pro organic extremists, which are even more annoying because at the end of the day there is zero conclusive evidence against GMO, and zero evidence that suggests organic is in any way better than anything else (but it certainly costs more!)

Anywho, being overweight in general isn't a good thing, but if you don't have hypertension and some of the other issues that go along with it, you aren't really in danger of anything bad happening any time soon. The main reason I had to lose weight was due to reduced renal function, which was caused by another unrelated problem related to the immune system (specifically, IGAn, which nobody has ever been able to identify the cause of, and it isn't any more prevalent in overweight people than anybody else.) However reduced weight means reduced body mass, which means reduced need for filtration.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Too bad healthy food tastes and/or feels like shit and excercise is frustrating, wholly unpleasant and time-consuming :/

Yet those of use who exercise and eat healthy seem to lead a happier life. With so much frustration and time wasting, it's a strange thing isn't it?

Maybe you should give it a go some day. You might end up liking your veggies and feeling good exercising...

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[ArmoredDragon]

No, that's not the problem. Only a half-wit conspiracy theorist dumbass would think they aren't trying to find a cure. The fact that they got here alone speaks volumes about just how badly they want one. What they've discovered is groundbreaking. They didn't choose for diabetes to exist. They also didn't choose for this treatment to only last two days, rather that's just an unfortunate downside of it. If you think it's so damned easy to find a cure, go publish your own damn paper.

Not everybody is involved in a conspiracy to deprive you of your wallet. The fact that you see it that way is entirely your choice to do so, and is probably the reason you feel like shit every day and think everybody is out to make your life suck. If you really hate civilization that bad, go live in a tree, shit in the woods, get a tropical disease, and see just how much better life is without all of the evil drug companies ruining it for you.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Gaygirlie]

Yet those of use who exercise and eat healthy seem to lead a happier life. With so much frustration and time wasting, it's a strange thing isn't it?

Not really. It's selection bias; those who do it tend to also like doing it, so of course they'll also be happy to continue with it. Those who don't like it tend not to do it. It's like asking people who enjoy chocolate if they're happy when they're eating chocolate.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Artifakt]

Probably not. Both me and my ex are Type 2. I can't afford to get even 20 lbs. over weight (I'm 6'1", For me, I should weigh at least 180 - that's show off the six pack range, but even with measured bodyfat at less than, say, 14%, I still have to use some oral meds if I get only 20 lbs. over what looks to be about ideal). For her, at only 5' 6", she could probably get above 220 before she would need to use insulin or see progress in retinopathy - she has some initial traces, but the progression has been totally stalled for nearly 10 years now. However, she has to stay below 180 lbs. or she has peripheral neuropathy symptoms (that's in the feet, where it usually starts. Under 165, she stops having those symptoms, plus even needing Metformin, and so she's trying to stay there. She has about the usual cushion for Type 2, I have almost none at all. For typical Type 2's, managing the disease well enough to beat neuropathy is also plenty to beat retinopathy. For atypical ones such as myself, who knows, but what AbRASION wrote is generally good advice.
            However, it's generally tougher than what he (?) wrote - more like 30 minutes + of just plain running 3x a week, PLUS some weights and wierd stuff like climbing walls, standing jumps for elevation and such, so the gym sessions usually go to a full hour, and weekend hiking, swimming, cross-training if either of us gains even five pounds, and often if not. We both run in 10 K's not just 5's,,and have managed a half marathon in the last 2 years. She leg presses 550 lbs to my 440, I'm benching 265 to her 110. If that's light exercise to someone, their dad's name was Jor El.
          Quadrupliing your complex carbs? Well double them at least, and cut the simpler starches nearly as much as the sugars. "Vastly reduce your sugar intake" is also accurate, as in NO HFCS, NO sweetened soft drinks, Stevia is a lifesaver, a cookie? - is it my birthday? We had to memorize, and check for changes frequently, which peanut butters or canned soups have how much added sugar - there's added sugar or HFCS in a whole lot of products that people don't usually expect. Who would think that some brands of Smoked Ham lunchmeat have more added sugar than the same brand's Honey Ham version? Working out as we do, we can manage twice a week soft drinks made from fruit juice and soda water, no added sweeteners, and a small dessert at sunday family dinners (a third of the pie slice or cake slice everyone else cuts), but I, at least, have to know which fruits are high in Fructose and which have more of the other sugars mixed in to even do that, and I skip that dessert completely more often than not.
          We've been on this sort of regimen for over 8 years for her and 11 for me. I'm not going to jump at a potential cure, because I'm managing, and I doubt she will want to volunteer for early tests either, but if this leads to a real cure, we can stick to what we do, and in another five years, most of you will be welcoming me and her as your new overlords. I'm expeding effort like what I used to do in my 30's to score 380 on the Army's extended scale APFT, just to stay in pretty good shape for a guy in his 50's. Take away this disease and that effort will again make me a veritable titan, and all Slashdot will tremble at my name. Bwaa-ha-ha-ha! Excuse me, I meant to say I find this prosepective cure moderately interesting.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Gaygirlie]

Which is worse, texturally: swallowing a bunch of vegetables now or a bunch of medicine later in life for all of the cancer you got from never eating healthy?

The former. Pills are so small that you can just gulp them down with any liquid drink you have handy. I know you were trying to be cheeky, but you kind of failed at it.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Bing Tsher E]

I think you missed out on the overall long term feeling you have that induces you to take the pills. Which is a permanent feeling. It also then sucks to feel dependent on said pills to feel at all well.

You're kidding about the pills, right? You don't consider your body just a big sack of chemicals used as the life support system for your brain, do you? Or is this a futile argument for me to even make?

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Gaygirlie]

I think you missed out on the overall long term feeling you have that induces you to take the pills. Which is a permanent feeling. It also then sucks to feel dependent on said pills to feel at all well.

But that's totally irrelevant. None of that changes how the food feels. Knowing that having your fingernails torn from your fingers and then having your arm chopped off would hurt like hell doesn't mean that stubbing your toe doesn't hurt anymore, and just as well the possibility of having to take meds in the future does not change how the food feels and how the texture dictates whether I can eat it or not. It is you who is missing what I'm saying.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I have a problem with how food feels in my mouth and going down, the texture of it matters a lot. The more consistent, predictable, processed feel the food has the more likely I am able to eat it, but alas, healthy food tends to be rough, tangy, contain all sorts of surprises and all that and I just can't stomach it. I just don't know how to make healthy food that tastes *and* feels good.

Indeed you do. One you should really genuinely seek professional help for. Because you have by your description got a food phobia. Quite common in kids with parents who never made them sit down and finish their dinner, including the nutritious yucky bits, or parents who didn't do much cooking.

Trust me.. your concept of what tastes good or bad is not what it should be. But it can be fixed. Not by forcing yourself to eat normal food, or refusing to eat with others. It's a complicated, and often deeply hidden psychological root that must be dealt with properly. Because there is more than being a fussy eater going on here.
And loading up on vitamin pills is not good either.

Food has texture. Food has variations in size, shape, density. It is supposed to. It's made of different substances. And the more processed it is. the less point there is in eating it.
The stuff you are eating now is tasteless featureless slop. Not opinion.. Fact. That you find real food so distasteful proves it.

Good food tastes bad to you because it actually has flavour. Chicken tastes different to a chunk of potato. But your palette is still stuck in childhood. Go to your doctor and get a referral to someone who can help. This isn't a curious quirk, this is a serious medical and psychological problem.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

What I meant was, you can train yourself to like healthy foods, to the point of craving them. Me, just eating one small burger from McDonald's makes me sick now.

As for exercising, it make you feel good. It really does. It's a real buzz after an mere half hour of cycling or swimming.

And then, in the grand scheme of things, when your health is good, you generally feel good too.

Staying healthy makes you feel good, but it does so in the medium to long run, and it takes a bit of effort to get going. Chocolate provides immediate, short-term and effortless pleasure. But it's not good for you. Don't you think it's worth investing a little effort for a few months to train yourself to enjoy a healthy lifestyle, so that you can feel good all the time afterward?

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[mark-t]

If you don't think something that can last a whole 2 freaking days is a big deal because they have to keep doing it, I suggest asking someone who has to poke themselves with a needlle 4 or 5 times a day what they think.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[MrBingoBoingo]

"Yeah; your cholesterol levels are controlled by your liver." Very much this. I am chubby pack a day smoker while also being sedentary and drinking ~400 ml plus of hard liquor a day. My cholersterol is great though. Ninetieth percentile on LDL's and low HDL and VHDL cholesterol. It is a situation where people don't get to roll their own dice as much as the shills would have them imagine so.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Artifakt]

Thank you. I stopped just saying "Fuck you" to the idiots who want to bash diabetics, because it seems to turn the few who aren't just looking to boost their own egos off to learning, and I want to reach every one that can be reached, but I'm in fundamental agreement. I didn't start having symptoms until my early forties, and am nearly 60 now, but I think I understand (see my post above if you want).
          You see something from someone on the internet who doesn't have the genes for Type 2, and it turns out does less than a quarter of the physical workout you do in their day to day life, (if that), gets away in the short run with eating what you simply, just, can't, has no clue that what he's doing will kill him with a stroke at 48 (because some genetic conditions don't give as many warning shots as others), and is, at 35, already seeing the negative effect on his love life but also has no clue it started with that little bit of weight he thinks he is getting by with, because he obviously isn't as lazy as you, since he doesn't have Type 2 diabetes. And that someone lectures people like you about how lazy you are and if you'd just do like him, you could beat this "disease" (which he puts in quotes, like that). And they won't let you shove him through a wood chipper! It's not fair at all.
          But we (and I mean specific, real, You and Me, not some generalized group) need to get as many of those idiots as possible to wake up, learn this is a real disease, and support finding a real cure. I know they deserve the "Fuck You" ,but we, and plenty of people, who are threatened with dying an average of a decade early, with such conditions as gangrene after limb amputations, or extreme hypertension, deserve that effort to find a cure more. Please save the 'fuck you's' for the idiots who can't learn or have no money.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Gaygirlie]

What I meant was, you can train yourself to like healthy foods, to the point of craving them. Me, just eating one small burger from McDonald's makes me sick now.

That could be, or it could not be. I don't know. I would need to solve the food texture - issue first and I don't know how. Most what people offer me is "stuff it all in the blender and make it all the same, messy goop." -- doesn't sound like much of anything worth eating.

As for exercising, it make you feel good. It really does. It's a real buzz after an mere half hour of cycling or swimming.

Now you're trying to assert your own feelings and tastes as facts. I do not get any sort of "buzz" after excercise, I do not feel good about it, it just makes me cranky. I have tried in the past, I was once in quite good shape. I just couldn't keep it up because it was a major hassle, unpleasant and being cranky and tired was the opposite of what I wanted to feel like. All of you people who actually enjoy excercise always do the same thing where you assert that it's totally impossible not to like excercising and that everyone, EVERYONE, will feel the same as you about it.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Jesrad]

Oh so wrong. Healthy food is also fabulously tasty. Too bad most people have no idea what food actually is healthy and which ain't so much.

Through my college years of pizza, pasta, candy, couscous, cereal muesli and homemade fruit juices I ended up obese and prediabetic in 2007. I lost the extra weight and reversed the diabetic symptoms (fasting glycemia and Hb1ac back to normal) on zero exercise and a diet of roasted fatty duck filets (with the skin braised crispy), salmon sashimi, lamb/veal casserole, chicken massala and lots of greens bathing in molten butter.

There is a big personal investment required though: you must learn to cook.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Jesrad]

exercising and losing a significant amount of weight.

Nope.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Dr_Barnowl]

No, but it does mean that some of you who would have gotten cancer, don't.

As the original poster suggests, it's all about learned response to food.

My daughter likes processed crap as much as any 10 year old, but she loves home cooked food with plenty of veggies. Last Friday she was literally using both hands to cram the broccoli into her face (it was tempura broccoli, deep fried but basically nearly raw with a very thin coating of batter on a large piece of broccoli).

She was brought up with a wide variety of fruits and veggies in her life. Until she started dance lessons, where there is a little pocket money tuck shop, she thought that the only kind of sweeties was dried fruit. She has always received encouragement to try new things, and never been restricted from eating foods because they are "too good for children" or "too grown up".

On one notable oocasion when we were driving home from the supermarket we heard a "scronch, scronch" from the back seat like someone was eating an apple. But we didn't buy any apples. It's my daughter, eating a yellow bell pepper straight from the shopping bag with every sign of enjoyment.

I'd be inclined to agree with the sibling poster I see now as I write this ; you're not just stuck in a childhood, you're stuck in a childhood where your parents did you no favours from a food point of view. But I don't agree that healthy has to mean rough or tangy - even something as simple as lentil soup is very healthy but very consistent in texture.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Jethro]

That's actually not a cure. It's a treatment, and it works, but it's not a cure.

I started doing that about 7 years ago. I was never obese, but I was overweight and I ate a lot (and I mean a LOT) of crap.

So, I stopped eating crap, and started getting a lot more exercise. I didn't lose any weight but I lost a whole lot of fat. My A1C last check was 6.1, and my glucose levels tend to be normal... but.

If I go eat a pizza right now, my blood sugar will still spike. It probably won't go a LOT above 200, but it will get there and stay there for a lot longer than a non-diabetic. Now my way of dealing with that is to never EVER eat anything with as many carbs in it as a pizza would have, and limit my carb intake to early in the day before I do the whole exercise thing.

I'm at the point where I've got it pretty much under control (much to the chagrin of my original doctor which I have since moved on from for obvious reasons) but I would love, love, LOVE a cure. Diabetes forced me to develop the tools and discipline to stay in shape, and I would likely still do that, but I do miss soo much good food.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[HnT]

Note that the article talks about a TREATMENT and not a CURE. Your diet and workout regime is also a TREATMENT and not a CURE. As it stands now Type2 can go into remission which usually means your GP will take you off of your meds and people think they are "cured" when actually they are not cured, their condition is just in remission and like your account vividly displays: it can quickly flare up again.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[umghhh]

had my Mum losing sight to this shit so I know haw dangerous it is. Keep up good spirits. I hope your sport regimen makes some fun at least.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Paradise Pete]

Pretty much the only way to avoid that in most cases is to eat so little that you aren't meeting your daily caloric needs, which means you'd need to starve yourself to death in order to avoid taking insulin.

Well that's certainly not true. You can eat plenty of meat, eggs, spinach, broccoli, olive oil and much much more.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Paradise Pete]

I've commonly heard a rumor that artificial sweeteners impact insulin somehow

A rumor without any reasonable evidence to support it.

Re: There's another treatment that stops most T2

[RabidReindeer]

that's because enforced exercise in a special purpose exercise room is unnatural. Try cycling or walking to and from your work, and try standing up at work for a significant portion of the day.

I have done all of the above. One job I had was with a company whose policy was "if you have time to sit down, you're slacking". The nearest bus stop is about 1 mile from my home. And in summer, if I don't mow the lawn every 15 minutes or so, children and small animals may disappear.

Sorry. No endorphin rushes came my way. All I ever get is hot, uncomfortable, sore and annoyed.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[Charliemopps]

It's called eating well, exercising and losing a significant amount of weight.
I know, I came very very close to having it. Break the sugar addiction, quadruple your vegetable intake, vastly reduce your sugar / heavy foods intake and do a little, tiny bit of basic light exercise.

In a couple of years, guess what,...?

Watch this: https://www.ted.com/talks/pete...
Get some compassion.

Re: There's another treatment that stops most T2

[mrfaithful]

All I ever get is hot, uncomfortable, sore and annoyed.

I think that's true of everyone it's just that the morning gym types get pleasure from rubbing others noses in it. The "I cycled to work this morning" and "I did X in the gym this morning" folk seem to spend all day with lower productivity and tend to be more prone to moodiness. The staff I work with were better before their health kick. I'd prefer they waited until after work, makes my job more pleasant.

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[sacrilicious]

Really liked reading your entry... I'm same-minded about exercise and what I eat, for largely the same reasons. Thought I'd put in a plug for xylitol; exactly as sweet as sugar gram for gram, no bitterness/weirdness in taste, natural, long long history of usage in Europe, *is safe for diabetics* because it doesn't cause the same insulin reaction that sugar does, and even helps prevent tooth decay (because it looks enough like sugar to mouth bacteria that they try to digest it, but fail/die). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X...

Re:There's another treatment that stops most T2

[judoguy]

No, only bad food tastes bad. People today don't know what healthy food is. Bacon and eggs are healthy foods. Butter is healthy food. Starchy carbs are tasty, but unhealthy foods. Rice cakes are unhealthy food. You may have an eating disorder, but that's a different problem.

I agree completely that exercise for the sake of exercise sucks. The trick to happiness in exercise to find something you can enjoy for it's own sake. Physical activity is great for lots of reasons, but weight loss isn't one of them. If you are on a carb diet, you generally can't lose *fat* from exercise. You can burn glucose OR fat. It's called the Randall cycle . You have to get into a fat burning metabolism to burn fat. Otherwise you're just burning muscle and liver stored glycogen and storing the fat.

I'm a 61 year old judo competitor. A little over 4 years ago, I started eating lots of fat, moderate protein and very low carb intake. I lost 40lbs in about 6 months and it didn't come back. I never count calories, eat tons of eggs and very little grain, whole or otherwise. My cholesterol panels went from getting-ready-to-die to teenage athlete levels. Yes, I get plenty of exercise in the dojo, but that literally hasn't changed in decades. Only the diet changed. Eating fat and cutting the carbs is what made the difference for me and about a dozen of my friends.

wall-e

[nbritton]

Remember the movie wall-e? All those fat people on the ship, we're going to end up like them if we don't tackle the root problem. A cure for type II diabetes is great and all, but it does nothing to solve the root problem(s).

Re:wall-e

[techno-vampire]

Diabetes is mostly annoying and not commonly deadly.

To quote the infamous Dr. Terwilliger, "I, on the other hand, am inclined to doubt that statement." The most brilliant man I ever knew, Dan Alderson was diabetic and didn't take care of himself. Two years before he was forced to retire for medical reasons, he lost his eyesight to diabetic neuropathy; he was only able to continue because I became his "seeing eye person" and helped him continue to program by dictation. Next, it caused his kidneys to fail so that he had to go on dialysis, forcing him to retire. About a year later, he lost a foot to an ulcer, largely caused by his diabetes. Within a year he was dead. Another friend was concerned about his blood sugar levels and made an appointment to have it checked; before the appointment came, he died of hyperglycemia. I developed Type II twelve years ago and since then have woken up in four different ERs. Diabetes can be, and often is a deadly metabolic disorder. Please learn what you're talking about before you comment on this subject again.

Re:wall-e

[Dr_Barnowl]

is caused by a combination of lifestyle and genetic factors

That's the key right there - in the majority of cases, you need the combination.

As many have posted, some people are huge fatties with low cholesterol and well controlled blood sugar. This concurs with the above - they are lucky enough not to have the genetic components.

Type II diabetes is of low incidence in India, but of high incidence in those of Indian-Asian ethnicity living in Western cultures. What's the difference? In India, people eat differently and exercise more. Despite their increased genetic predilection to Type II diabetes, they don't get it from their genetics alone.

The assertion that it has one root cause is false - the human metabolism is a complex system with many factors. The fact that you can't control many of these factors seems to be a vast comfort to some folk, as if it somehow absolves them of responsibility - but it remains true that you DO have control over factors that by themselves can prevent you getting the disease.

FYI--Mayo clinic article on diabetes

[thorndt]

Just to level-set everybody.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/dise...

Tobacco smoke boosts FGF1 by 50%

[Nightlight3]

As always when a new miracle medicine is hailed in the media, I check the effects of the ancient medicinal plant, tobacco on the same biochemical mechanisms, and it didn't disappoint this time either -- as shown in this paper (pdf), it boosts the same Fibroblast Growth Factor-1 by 50% (nicotine will do as well in this case).

Re:Cure?

[ArmoredDragon]

No, but if it removes insulin resistance even temporarily then it can improve the hell out of their lives and dramatically reduce morbidity. Even taking that treatment once a day would be much better than dealing with the constant finger pricks, injections, and constantly having to be careful about what you eat (and I'm not talking about sugary foods, which are obvious and easy to avoid, but rather the glycemic load in other foods that are very much not obvious.)

Re:what a coincidence

[mark-t]

One injection every 48 hours is one helluvalot better than having to jab yourself with a needle 4 or sometimes even 5 times in a single day.

Re:Diabetic and Cancer patient - sign me up

[davester666]

A bunch of big-pharma executives are plowing their hookers extra hard tonight. A "cure" that you have to keep taking for the rest of your life, for a relatively common disease. If anything, they are slightly worried the tip of their penis will pop off.

Strike that. Reverse it.

[Antique Geekmeister]

[ I speak as an older programmer, with plenty of diabetic acquaintances and family. ]

I'm afraid there are plenty of Type 2 diabetics whose weight gain was _triggered_ or at least ballooned, under the influence of Type 2 diabetes. The insulin resistance can also cause high insulin levels, which triggers hunger. The spiral of high insulin levels and weight gain can get out of hand very quickly. The result is that people believe that the weight gain triggered the Type 2, not the reverse, especially as the early symptoms are quite modest and only show up with regular blood testing or a glucose tolerance test. It also makes treatment quite difficult, since lapses can leave the victims feeling surprisingly hungry and eager to break their treatment regimes.

There are certainly millions of Type 2 diabetics who'd welcome a much simpler treatment approach: the oral medications do have complications. Injections are awkward, but there are certainly millions of Type 1 diabetics who absolutely need frequent insulin injections or insulin pumps who will say "get over it".