I have very high chollesterol (Hereditary, since i'm slim), does it count :/ ?

I was lucky in that respect that I got it when I turned 13 years old, but going 6 years strong. And that probably wouldn't be a good idea ;p For you anyway

Thanks, interesting link. :)

It's at a very, very early stage though. The scientist talks about lab tests as a thing to do in the future, meaning that they don't even know yet whether the cells would work. Even if they work, the next problem is how to transfer this to humans. Will a human body accept such cells, or reject them as foreign? Will the immune system that destroyed the body's own cells destroy the new cells as well?

The scientist is probably right in calling the technology he's developing an "important step", but it's also a very early one, and it might even turn out to be a dead end.

Anyway, I didn't want to sound overly pessimistic. :) Basically, my stance is: The insulin therapy has developed enough to make the condition very manageable. I'm simply happy for that (a couple hundred years ago, I'd probably simply be dead by now). I don't really expect an actual "cure" to be developed before I'm to old for it to make sense for me, but I'm not feeling depressed about that. If a cure appears, I'll be positively surprised. If not, I'll continue to be happy that I have condition that can be managed (and be frustrated at times when things go wrong, of course, but that goes away after a day). I'm a bit skeptical about the sensibility of organ transplants for diabetics in general.

I don't know, for some reason, my whole general feeling about my diabetes is "it could have been a lot worse". ;) I even prefer shooting insulin over swallowing those awkwardly huge pills (and keeping a strict diet) with which my first doctor tried to keep my condition in check (he mistook me for a type 2, which he apparently had experience with, type 1 is comparatively rare).

Indeed the progress in Insulin is great with Lantus and Novorapid not to mention the possible introduction of smart-insulin with FDA approval in the future.

Not really. ;) If massive intake of carbohydrates would cause diabetes, then the majority of professional athletes would be diabetics. Being overweight increases the risk though, as (probably) does a lack of physical exercise, and unfortunately these things can create a feedback loop. The more sweets you eat, the more weight you put on -> the more weight you have, the less you enjoy physical exercise -> the less you do physical exercise, the greater gets the risk to put on even more weight -> etc.

But in general, nobody really knows yet what's causing diabetes.

No diabetes here so I can't participate.

I don't know anyone with diabetes so can't even imagine what it must be like nor do I know much about it but I hope for the best for those that do have it and big ups to deng09 for this contest!

Yeah its good to just stay positive about it and what you said insulin works fine too. And there are people with conditions (MS) who do really feel their life being affected alot more.
Whatever way of finding a cure might still take years, but my nephew of 4 has also been diagnosed with type 1, so i hope for him they do find something.

I do find it somewhat shocking on how Diabetes is spreading in every country. Which isn't always just caused by obesitas. Then again there is alot of junk , sugar and salt in our food products.

I also hope that they will find something especially for kids. It can be really hard for kids, even if it is better now with the newer insulins. I have type 1 since I was two years old, can´t even remember how it was without.

Glad to see you're taking it in stride. 13 is probably an age at which most people have enough complications in their lives without getting a chronical condition on top of it - glad to see that you've pulled through! :)

That's one thing I'm grateful for with my son, he was on insulin before he was on solid food so he has no memory of not being diabetic. It's actually my daughter that has been harder to adapt. She doesn't quite understand why her brother sometimes gets special attention, or why we never wake her up in the middle of the night to give her "candy." A few weeks ago we were playing and my son collapsed and started screaming and having convulsions, his blood sugar had dropped to 32. For those not familiar with it, this is dangerously low, at that level can come coma and death. I went into danger mode and my daughter began to protest; "He's not playing the right way!" "It's my turn!" "Can I have some of that candy too?" My first few words to her were very harsh before I caught myself, I still feel bad about it.

Does USA use a different scale for blood sugar than UK?
I'm forever being told that my blood sugar SHOULD be between 6 & 8.
I was diagnosed as diabetic when a test showed it was 30 something.

Yep, there are two scales commonly used right now, and there are geographical differences about which one is more popular.

Let me look for a link ...

Edit: Here is an explanation that is probably way more in-depth than appropriate, but the first 4 paragraphs explain the two scales, their differences, and their usage. :)

Thank you.

Wow, just wanna tell you how awesome this gesture is.

Thankfully, the two scales are so different that there's practically no risk of misunderstanding things due to using the wrong scale. The conversion factor is 18, so there's practically no overlap. Only the extremely high values in the mmol/l scale (30 and higher) touch the lowest values of the mg/dl scale.

Of course, misunderstandings still _can_ happen ... I once had a doctor mistaking a test strip code (which the blood glucose meter displays before measuring anything) for my glucose level ... he noticed the mistake _after_ he had given me a dose of insulin based on the first number, but thankfully they weren't too far apart. ;)