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Comment by thinkcomp | Hacker News Reader

This seems to be research related to Type I diabetes, which means it's only potentially a cure for one variant of the disease, and it's also not totally clear how it differs from previous research:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00626359#page-1

Nonetheless, it does seem that there have been a number of encouraging research finds around Type I diabetes in recent months (http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/10/giant-leap-aga...).

In general, always take media coverage of scientific finds with a grain of salt, and maybe two grains for local news coverage.

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I think the research you linked is for T2D (non-insulin dependent). It's interesting the research into Verapamil apparently is for both T1 and T2, since my understanding was the mechanism of the diseases were entirely different.

With T1D your body stops producing insulin due to beta cell death caused by an autoimmune disorder, so you need to constantly monitor your blood glucose level and carb intake in order to dose yourself with the right amount of insulin multiple times per day, or you go into hypo/hyperglycemia.

I'm much less familiar with T2D, but I thought the body produces more and more insulin but becomes resistant and the insulin fails to adequately control blood glucose level. Beta cell death in T2D is then a follow-on confounding factor due to the persistently high glucose levels.

Mechanisms of pancreatic beta-cell death in type 1 and type 2 diabetes: many differences, few similarities: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16306347

Yes. It is always frustrating to have to dig through paragraphs of text to find out which of the two, basically unrelated diseases the article is talking about.

I really wish they had different names.

Yes beta cells killed by the immune system is Type I.

It's also important to point out that Type I only makes up about 5% of diabetes cases. Though a cure for either would drastically improve a lot of peoples lives.

Is type II treatable by lifestyle changes, or are the effects permanent once it occurs?

Type 2 is treatable by lifestyle changes. The specifics can very person to person based on genes, the time for which you have had it and so on, it is largely possible to use lifestyle modification to get off medication and have your average sugars under control and basically enter the pre-diabetic stage.

At http://www.janacare.com/, we are using technology to help this process.

I can't even imagine what my life would be like without T1D. I've had it for almost 20 years now. The constant monitoring, the general feeling of crappiness, the extreme costs. I spend thousands of dollars a year on the costs.

Any given sickness can have catastrophic effects as well. When I have a flu, I usually check myself into the hospital for monitoring. Blood sugar fluctuates hard, and its difficult to keep food down. My dad's best friend died from exactly this, a normal flu that disrupted eating patterns.

Literally ANY mistake can be life threatening. Over the last year I have been required emergency care twice due to low blood sugars. I would pay anything, do anything to have this go away.

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