Why is there not a cure for diabetes?

Answer 1

Because it's not a virus or bacteria or even a disease. It's a missing hormone (insulin) in the body. The body either can't make enough insulin, or can't respond to it properly, and so things go out of whack.

Since insulin, like most hormones, is designed to control the body's function by subtle fluctuations in its level, it doesn't even help completely to just replace the missing insulin from the outside -- the fluctuations won't be correct.

Normally, insulin levels in the body track the sugar levels in the bloodstream, which are in turn affected by diet and exercise. Treating Diabetes is done by diet adjustment to lower the need for large "spikes" of insulin production, and by trying to keep a relatively constant level of insulin in the blood through regular injections.

The only cure for diabetes would be to replace the damaged beta cells of the pancreas so they can produce insulin the way they should, at the correct times and amounts. This cure is actually being tried with computer-based artificial pancreases. (See the 'artificial pancreas' page link, further down this page, listed under Related Links).

What we really need are regrown pancreas cells. (See the 'cure for diabetes' page link, further down this page, listed under Related Links).

But even this solution doesn't help if whatever killed off the pancreas in the first place is still killing it. And one of the things that's known to kill pancreas cells is high blood glucose, the primary symptom of diabetes!

So it's a rather tricky problem.
Diabetes cannot be cured.
Diabetes is a an uncured disease. There isn't a cure for it yet, but I am hoping for one to come along soon. Diabetes is treated by injections of insulin each day, and by checking your blood sugar often enough that you can control it. If your blood sugar goes to high, you could end up in a diabetic coma. That's when you have to much sugar and not enough insulin. Insulin is made in your pancreas and sent to your blood stream to balance out the sugar there. In a diabetic pancreas, it either doesn't produce enough insulin or doesn't produce any at all, hence the insulin injections.

Answer 2

In the disease of Type 1 Diabetes, the beta cells are either damaged or destroyed, and as a reason, are unable to secret insulin. Those damages are unreversable, thus the condition is "uncurable", in the sense of the word. Insulin, a hormone, made by these beta cells, are located in the Langerhans Islets in the Pancreas. It has several functions, and the most important of them are its involvements of the body's use of sugar (or glucose), ranging from lowering the glucose level in the blood, helping glucose inside the cell (to be broken down), and others. The body needs a constanst supply of energy to be able to funtion, or simply put, to be able to live. Every single chemical reaction in the body needs energy. Most of that energy comes from the break-down of sugar. The break down (or cellular respiration) happens inside all of cells. Without insulin none of these could happen. Some cells got oversupplied (and damaged) by the high glucose level in the blood, while other cells are starved for glucose, as they are unable to access it. That has been a potential death-sentence before the use of administered insulin. But, while this helped the sufferers to lead a reasonably normal life, it still could not be considered a "cure". However, the research for using stem cells are are very intense. Stem cells are undiferenciated cells with the ability to become any cells the body need; even BETA CELLS, thus it is expected to take over the ceased functions of the original beta cells, secreting and supplying the body with the necessary amount of insulin. Thus, establishing the original conditions which existed before the beta cells got damaged/destroyed. Such implantation of stem cells (the patient's own adult stem cells, according to their adversitements) is already done in a private clinic in Cologne, Germany. For further info, please, use related links.

Answer 3

It isn't that there is no cure it is just that the cure is still in the testing process. There is a clinical study for a possible type one diabetes cure. They take islet cells from a donor and put them in your liver. There are several versions of this process being tested in several different hospitals in the US and Canada.