Along the road to a cure

I’m tired. T1D is exhausting. I’m burnt out. I would like a break from diabetes – for a day, for a week, for the rest of my life.

I don’t know anyone with T1D who doesn’t want a cure. And I also understand that a cure looks different to different people. To be honest, I don’t really know what a cure means to me. Whatever it is, a cure would give me back a lot of the brain bandwidth diabetes takes from me, freeing up that space to bedazzle the cat, learn to macrame, make crostoli each week…do anything other than diabetes.

I also don’t know anyone with diabetes who isn’t grateful for the advances in management that mean a diabetes diagnosis in 2026 is different from what it was in 1926. Or 1966. Or 2006. Or even 2016.

I had a discussion the other day with someone who told me that all T1D research should be going towards a cure. ‘Everything else is a waste of time. And it’s diverting funds and attention from what matters.’

This isn’t a new thought. I’ve had variations of this discussion dozens, if not hundreds, of times over the years I’ve lived with and worked in diabetes. And I always push back, because I’m so grateful for the non-cure research that has me living with T1D the way I do.

I pointed out that millions and millions of dollars and millions and millions of hours of research have indeed gone into finding a cure, and along the way there have been some pretty significant discoveries to help us better understand T1D. Those understandings are all part of the giant, complex, 3D puzzle that needs to be solved before a cure is available.

And I also pointed out that no autoimmune condition has actually been cured. Why our bodies decide to turn on themselves is a mystery. But strides are being made. We have studies underway showing that transplanted insulin-producing cells can restore insulin production and, in some cases, eliminate the need for injected insulin.

I’m cautiously optimistic and incredible excited about what I’m seeing with the latest research, but I balance my expectations by remembering there are caveats. There remains the need for immunosuppression and there are still questions about long-term outcomes.

That’s what research does. It answers questions. It also poses other questions. And it raises questions in our community. Such as is a functional cure a cure? Well, that’s up for debate. And that’s okay. I guess that just as there is no one way to live with T1D, there will not be one therapy that everyone considers to be its cure. As ever, YDMV!

But back to that comment about where research funds should be directed. Should we be more narrow focused on only funding cure research? And would we be closer to a cure for T1D if every single cent had gone towards finding that cure? Who knows?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But if the answer is no, imagine all the advances we would have missed out on.

Often, it is parents of kids with diabetes who are the most vocal about lamenting cure efforts. I get it. No one wants their kid to have T1D or to have to deal with the daily demands and unpredictability of the condition. I don’t know too many adults who want that either.

But I do wonder what life with T1D would look like for us today if research had focused exclusively on finding a cure, at the expense of making diabetes easier, safer and less burdensome to manage.

While I’m not here to tell anyone what they should want from diabetes research, I am here to challenge the idea that research that doesn’t deliver a cure is somehow less valuable.

Research over the years has delivered insulin to keep us alive, and better insulins that more closely mimic endogenous insulin. We have insulin delivery systems that mean we no longer need to boil glass syringes and sharpen terrifying-looking needles. We have CGMs to track glucose levels in real time, predict where they’re heading and alert us to impending highs and lows. And we have algorithms in AID systems to adjust insulin delivery in response to changing glucose levels. Diabetes complications can now be diagnosed early, stopped in their tracks, treated and even reversed. We better understand the psychosocial impacts of diabetes and have evidence to inform approaches to reducing diabetes distress and supporting emotional wellbeing. And we can quantify the harm of diabetes-related stigma. We have cell therapies and disease-modifying therapies that, for the first time, are making us rethink what T1D treatment and the path towards a cure might look like.

Of course, while we celebrate these advances, we must never lose sight of the ever-growing gap between people who can access and afford these advances and those who cannot. Again, I don’t want to minimise anyone’s advocacy efforts, but surely, we need to also consider the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, and how they too can access the treatments, technologies and therapies that research makes possible.

Progress can seem slow when it’s looked at as a day-by-day proposition. But when we look at years and decades, we can see there have been huge leaps. Progress is real, and those of us fortunate enough to live in places where diabetes technologies and treatments are accessible, and where there are systems in place to make them affordable, bear witness to that progress in the way we manage our diabetes day in, day out.

We deserve a cure. I want a cure. I want to know where my cure is.

And I can do that while continuing to support and advocate for research into better treatments and new therapies. And be incredibly grateful to the researchers doing the work, the funds available to make it happen, and the people raising funds and donating.

So much progress. Still so much more progress needed. As ever with diabetes – two things are true at the same time.

DISCLOSURE

For transparency, I want to remind readers that I work in the Global Responsibility team at Breakthrough T1D which is the leading global organisation dedicated to T1D research, policy advocacy, and community support.