CRISPR offers new hope for treating diabetes
37 comments
·September 11, 2025RHSeeger
chips_not_fries
type 2 is more closely associated with genetics than type 1
null
spinach
But being overweight is a huge risk factor for developing it and absolutely can contribute to it. I don't how it being more deadly in skinny people detracts from that or is relevant at all.
RHSeeger
Because people (who don't know what they're talking about) respond with statements like "you can cure Diabetes Type 2 with diet and exercise", and
- That's false. For _most_ people, you can prevent the symptoms of it with those, but not all. Nor does it _cure_ it, it prevents it from presenting symptoms. The same way that avoiding a food you are allergic to doesn't cure the allergy, it just prevents it from impacting you
- It's insulting to a lot of people that _are_ eating and exercising well, but still battling with Diabetes Type 2
It's wrong and it's insulting.
tracker1
Even if you are overweight... it's NOT easy to lose weight.. especially if you've lost a significant amount of weight in your life. You may well have a really dysfunctional metabolism, and most advice is just bad for this case. Many people actually have to eat more of a reduced menu in order to lose weight.
I'm a pretty big fan of carnivore for this, which has its own detractors, and countering half a century of misinformation of meat and fat isn't the easiest thing in the world. And even then, you may still need some level of supplemental insulin for a long while.
That isn't to say I support general gluttony and laziness... but it isn't that easy, and its even harder when people just assume you aren't even trying or have negativity towards you in general. You try to work out and you get dirty looks and stares... you are eating out (healthy options) but again, dirty looks and stares... it doesn't help.
chips_not_fries
it's one factor but weight and diet isn't the only component
umvi
This is great news. Any type of pancreatic function restoration is also potentially good for Type 1.5 (which constitute a sizable chunk of misdiagnosed T2Ds) where the body attacks more slowly (over the course of years) instead of acutely like traditional T1D and so doctors assume it's insulin resistance instead of pancreatic function decline since they both present with the same symptom - hyperglycemia.
tracker1
It would be nice if fasting insulin and other markers were tested more regularly beyond fasted glucose and a1c, since those can vary for other reasons. Not to mention catching those developing insulin resistance potentially years ahead.
Lu2025
BTW Covid harms pancreatic cells that produce insulin via autoimmune mechanisms.
DarwinsToffees
This is very encouraging, but will take a long time to get to any type of usable treatment because these cells are literally made to evade the immune system they run a whole bunch of other risks. Also cell therapies right now are one of the weakest markets in Biotechs due to the level of costs to develop. This is slightly different since it's Allogenic, but the market seems not very invested in cell therapy.
mlhpdx
This seems like it’s on the right track. Finally something that doesn’t require immunosuppressants.
beached_whale
It was in people and not mice too. So many of these headlines are in cell cultures or mice.
psb
Just sent this to my son, seems legitimately promising
m3kw9
Type 2, they need to solve type 2.
snarf21
There have been a lot of advancements on this front too. One promising technique is duodenum resurfacing (DMR). This helps reset some of the insulin sensitivity issues. The one problem we have is that this is a one time low risk procedure compared to selling insulin or GLP-1. Like all of our problems in healthcare, we have a major misalignment in incentives.
PicassoCTs
[dead]
toomuchtodo
If GLP-1 Drugs Are Good for Everything, Should We All Be on Them? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44830685 - August 2025
mezeek
isn't that what GLP1s are for (before you get full blown type 2)
javchz
Yes, but even lifestyle changes (like a diet low in glycemic load and building muscle) can help reduce many of the harmful effects of type 2 diabetes, even sending it into remission for some people in early stages.
Type 1 is a different story. It’s the lack of natural insulin production (due to a damaged pancreas, autoimmune or other causes), basically the opposite problem to type 2, and no amount of lifestyle changes will replace of need of insulin doses.
kulahan
I just want to make clear what the other commenter said: type 2 is completely reversible in its early stages. Lose weight, eat a more healthy diet, and you should see your body return to normal.
Unfortunately, there's a serious time limit on this news, as the disease does permanently damage your cells, but in a way that's not terrible. It's probably easier to be shocked by a diagnosis into a lifestyle change than to find out now and undo 30 years of living with daily insulin injections anyways.
CyberDildonics
If you treat sugar as an addiction you can solve it yourself.
moi2388
Why? Type 2 can be mostly prevented and if caught early enough treated with diet and exercise.
If you solve type 2 they’ll just eat themselves into a new episode again
UI_at_80x24
I know you put the caveat "mostly" in here but it's important to state that this is not always true.
I was diagnosed with T2 a couple of years ago. During that time I was cycling 25 miles a day. After the diagnoses I completely eliminated all carbs from my diet. My blood sugar was still not under control. My fasting blood sugar (first thing in the morning, and 18hrs of fasting) was the highest point of the day. (14-18 mmol/L) I fasted (water only) for 1 week. no difference.
I was on a bunch of medication, none of it helped.
It wasn't until I started taking a GLP-1 drug that my sugar came under control.
So medication (ozempic) was critical to me getting my blood sugar under control. Diet didn't fix it. Exercise didn't help.
I've lost ~90lbs since then. I'd probably have died/gone into a coma if not for GLP-based drugs.
My anecdote does not contradict wide-spread science and medically derived knowledge. But it should help temper the fat and diet shaming that exists in society.
fhdkweig
If you lost 90 lbs, you must have been at least 90 lbs overweight. That isn't a little bit of fat. That is a lot of fat. And it takes a lifetime to put on that much fat. You can't really claim that you had proper exercise and diet before you started taking medications. I have seen many episodes of My 600 LB Life and similar shows where the clients and their caretakers swear on their mother's graves that they even eat at all, but that isn't how reality and physics work.
Don't misunderstand, I'm glad they made the GLP-1 drugs, but still, they have for years been reversing Type 2 diabetes through exercise a diet.
somenameforme
A bit of a tangent, but the biking stuff is not relevant. What matters is your caloric consumption. Biking 25 miles, depending on your weight, is going to burn something like 1300 calories. For some contrast, a 2L bottle of coke has about 800 calories. So treat yourself to a big serving of Coke after (or during) the biking, maybe a fast food burger or whatever, and it's like you're not even biking at all in terms of caloric effect. This is also true with 'sports drinks' which are also loaded with calories which can be really easy to chug when doing cardio intensive work.
And this can easily happen because biking 25 miles is going to send your appetite skyrocketing. This is why working out to lose weight is probable one of the worst ideas imaginable. Working out is a critical part of staying in good health, but it simply has to be paired with a good diet, permanently. In other words you can't work away a bad diet at the gym (or on a bike), it just doesn't work.
borroka
If you say that diet did not fix it, but then you lost ~90 lbs, which is a massive weight loss [(1) congratulations, 2) we are becoming used to people losing 200 lbs and 90 is a victim of weight-loss inflation], it looks like the problem was that the diet, which can be defined as a particular way of eating and/or caloric restriction, was not really a diet in the second meaning of the term.
Ozempic helped you lose weight primarily by making you stick to a diet, due to its suppressing effects on appetite.
mrguyorama
So very rough estimate:
25 miles of biking is somewhere in the world of 400ish Calories.
If you were doing that and not losing weight, you were eating 400ish excess Calories on average.
That's the equivalent of a single packet of Ramen, or about 4 Oreo cookies. Food is extremely energy dense.
Exercise, especially using efficient means like biking or running or walking, just isn't that effective. You need caloric restriction to make any ground for the majority of people.
>But it should help temper the fat and diet shaming that exists in society.
Why would it? Factually, if Ozempic and similar solved your weight issues, it directly means you were eating "too much" food. People who see that as a personal failing will continue to do so, and will see Ozempic as enabling "weak willed" people, or a crutch for "lesser" people.
bregma
Most cancer can be prevented and if caught early treated with surgery, chemo, or radiation. No need to look for a cure, those people will probably just keep smoking or eating or exposing themselves to the environment and die anyway.
ch4s3
> Most cancer can be prevented
This is a highly questionable statement. There are myriad reasons for the kinds of DNA copying errors that cause cancer(s), and few are mono-causal. Type-II diabetes is mainly a lifestyle disease and barely existed 50 years ago. That said any treatment or effort to cure Type-II diabetes is laudable, and it's clear that broad societal factors create the conditions for so many people to develop diabetes.
Because it has been commented over and over "oh, type 2 is because you are overweight"...
> We tend to think of type 2 diabetes as a disease that afflicts people who are overweight. But it can also appear in people with perfectly healthy weights—and be more deadly in them. A study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that normal-weight people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes have double the risk of dying from heart disease and other causes than overweight people with diabetes.
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/diabetes-can-strike-hard...
(Yes, I know this post is about Type 1... but _all_ of the talk in it when I posted this was about Type 2; and basically blaming the people with it for their condition)