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PREVENTION OF DIABETES IN YOUNG PEOPLE
One day it will be possible to prevent diabetes. Unfortunately at the time of writing this, it is not possible to do so. We are confident that diabetes will be preventable because we know enough about the development of diabetes to direct research towards prevention and there are hopeful discoveries in this field.
We know that some people inherit an increased risk of diabetes, and we can identify these people by a blood test. We know that in most people, diabetes takes months or years to develop and during this period there is a gradual process of damage leading to the loss of the vital islet cells needed to make insulin. We can recognize that this process is going on by finding the evidence of it in the blood. This is done by detecting the presence of islet cell and insulin antibodies.
We know the process of damage is a self-destructive process called an auto-immune reaction and we have drugs that can slow down or even halt the auto-immune reactions in the body. There seems no doubt that more effective drugs that will control the process safely will be developed in the future.
It may moreover be possible one day to protect the islet ceils from self-destruction by a process perhaps similar to immunization. Major research laboratories and groups in many centers are actively working in this exciting area of diabetes.
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