Here is the story from the Northampton Chronicle that is referenced but not linked to: <a href="http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/doctors-now-80-per-cent-certain-daventry-man-is-the-first-person-ever-to-cure-himself-of-type-1-diabetes-1-7865892" rel="nofollow">http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/doctors-now-80-per-ce...</a><p>Note that it is similarly without any substantive details. Not to be a naysayer, buuuutttt... knowing a fair amount about type 1 diabetes, I can suggest any number of possible explanations that are far short of "miracle." The most obvious one is that he had over-treated type 2 diabetes and increased physical activity is leading to an increase in insulin sensitivity that looks like a miraculous cure. Alternatively, especially given the late age of diagnosis, he might have Latent Autoimmune Diabetes of Adults (LADA), which is kind of like really slowly developing type 1 diabetes. The body naturally goes through ebbs and flows in relative efficiency and autoimmunity, so if he still had some functioning beta cells, a temporary period of reduced autoimmunity could allow those cells to resurge and produce enough insulin to support his body without the addition of exogenous insulin. However, that's unlikely to last if that's the case.<p>Again, not to pooh-pooh all theoretically good news, but... I see lots of miracle cures for diabetes in headlines, and none on the pharmacy shelves.
I'm a programmer and I've had a type 1 diabetes for the last 21 years. It is one of the most complex things in my life to take care of
when all of the insulin therapies don't really work that well and I don't wake up to the nightly hypos. Luckily I'm in the German insurance system and getting an insulin pump first and later a CGM. Already I'm using an NFC chip in my arm giving results to my phone and from there to InfluxDB and Grafana. Later with a proper CGM I also get automatic alarms which wake me and my partner if the sugar gets to low.<p>There are great open source systems for us technical people, but the tech is very expensive without an insurance and requires you to solder an extra device to get the values to your phone. At least with an NFC device you can wrap a smartwatch over it to get the readings automatically to your phone, rooted of course.
4 years ago I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in my early forties. The hospital staff showed me how to manage my glucose with long acting and fast acting insuline.<p>As a programmer I'm good with numbers so everything was pretty much under control but I started noticing that I needed less and less insuline up to the point that I needed no insuline at all. This was about a year ago. At that same time I had some new physical health problems and it turned out I had celiac disease as well. Bummer :(<p>One side-effect of 'untreated' celiac is that carbohydrates are less well converted to glucose and so my glucose levels stayed normal without using insuline. Unfortunately it meant I was not cured from type 1 diabetes.<p>Now that I am on a gluten free diet my insuline usage is back to normal and I stopped farting as a bonus :)
Quote: "Mr Darkes says that doctors are now 80 per cent convinced he is cured of the condition, which has never before been reversed."<p>I suspect (and it can't be more than a suspicion) that many of those with diabetes diagnoses never take the risk of reevaluating their physical condition, but passively continue their medication -- and that seems wise and prudent.<p>Maybe a carefully designed study, an animal study at first, could reveal that what happened to this individual is on the roster of possibilities, that some people have the ability to reactivate their pancreases in the right circumstances.<p>It's already well-established that physically active people have a lower risk for diabetes, but once the condition is diagnosed, most people start an insulin regimen that never ends. This case suggests that a person's pancreas can be reactivated -- but for how many? And is the change permanent? These are unanswered questions.
Sadly this article doesn't say if he can eat cakes or cookies without dangerously high blood sugars. This test could say quite definitively if he is cured or not.<p>Usually term "reversed" is used in context of Type 2 diabetes, meaning that patient can have normal range blood sugar without any medications, but patients still cannot eat cookies/cakes without blood sugar spiking to dangerous levels.
tldr: Unsatisfyingly short article about someone no longer having type 1 diabetes -- without any even possible explanation as to why. They only mention long-distance running as a remote possibility.
The article is a bit short on medical details. It sounds like he was diagnosed Type 1 diabetes and then after time they think his pancreas regrew the beta cells needed in a functioning pancreas
This seems... unlikely? Is it possible he had some other, rarer autoimmune condition that presented diabetes-like symptoms, and that resulted in a false diagnosis?