Saturday, May 31, 2014

The Problem with Type 2

People with T1 diabetes often complain that most of the research money is going into T2. On the contrary, while there is a lot of money going into research on T2, there's more going into T1 and a cure, or at least an artificial pancreas, is clearly on the horizon.

However, the biggest problem with research on T2 is that it is a garbage-can diagnosis -- anyone who is not auto-antibody positive, has not had a pancreatectomy, or who does not have one of a number of rare syndromes is then automatically lumped into the T2 category, but that does not mean they all have the same disease. They don't all have the same gene mutations (if they did, the mutation would have been found by now), and therefore don't all have the same enzyme and hormone malfunctions. So it boils down to a lot of scientists working, not on pieces of the same jigsaw puzzle, but on totally different jigsaw puzzles, with precious few clues.

There are plenty of people willing to assign blame to T2s, assuming that they brought it on themselves because of lifestyle issues, but that's because they are ignorant and proud of it, and it's important not to let those people get you down. Do what you have to and don't hold your breath for a cure, because T2 is DARN complicated, and it's going to take a lot more basic science to even get to the point where anyone even has a IDEA for a cure!