I would love to know what you think the Queen has to do with any of this...

Worst thing is, OP has been modded "insightful"...

Someone mod this up as clearly most of slashdot has never heard of the listen mode...

Hasn't ANYONE ever heard of listen mode? There's absolutely no need to get them to mess with their firewall/router.

That's what listen mode on your end is for...

Takes any of my computer illiterate aquaintances about 10 mins over the phone to install TightVNC. Then I start my client in listen mode, and get them to connect to me. Really not that complicated, no firewall to config, no whatismyip. The main step you need to remember to avoid most hassle with the most computer illiterate is to get them to use IE to download the installer by clicking on "Run", as Firefox doesn't allow you to do that. Then it's just a simple case of talking them through the installer, which is pretty basic...

Oh I wish I could mod you up. I'm sitting at work looking at the long list of passwords taped under the screen (a single PC used by 5 about different people), so your comment made me laugh!

Oh if I had mod points I'd mod you up. Yours is probably the most helpful comment. I was going through the comments trying to make sense of all of this as I couldn't work out why there's a difference between my older mp3s at 96k and my more recent ones at 192k (or more) if there isn't supposed to be. I hadn't realised the article was about kHz and mp3s are generally rated in quality by kbps (and after checking they all seem to be 44kHz).

Suddenly the article makes a whole lot more sense. Thanks!

I'm curious, which part of "I'm confident a cure will be found within the next decade or two. " in my previous post did you understand as me saying it's uncurable.
There is currently no cure. No alternative to insuline pump ou injections. One of the most promising papers as of late was about introducing a gene into either kidney or liver cells (I forget which), which then start producing insuline. As they're not the same as the beta cells in the pancreas, they don't get attacked by the immune system.

However, if you actually keep up on the publications on a specific subject, you'll see a LOT of papers that show a cure. We're constantly being told that the cure is just about ready, just a couple more years to finish developing and testing it. I've seen dozens of either cures or revolutionary treatments published in scientific papers. And so far not a single one has mounted to anything.

So, until there is actually a publicly available cure, then there is no cure. Ongoing medical research doesn't count, as it's constantly promising but never delivering.

So which is it? Fight or flight, or the change in diet? You say it's one thing, then immediately say it's another.

And nobody can claim to know what causes an autoimmune disease. Unless you of course think yourself better informed than every specialist of type 1 diabetes. Stress brings out the disease, it's true. Emotional trauma, even infections can bring out the symptoms. However that's just the final straw, the extra stress that the almost depleted pancreas can't handle. Type 1 diabetes can take years to destroy the cells to a point where the symptoms suddenly appear. The stress isn't what causes it, it's just the tipping point when the pancreas gives up its fight.
Of course, nobody can claim either that stress doesn't cause it, but all the cases of stress or trauma associated with the discovery of type 1 weren't the actual cause.

As for using a drug to induce type 1 diabetes, just because the same cells are destroyed doesn't mean that you can compare the two. Changing their diet so they resist the drug is no proof that the diet would avoid the autoimmune reaction flaring up.

I'm confident a cure will be found within the next decade or two. The hospital where I do my checkups is making very good progress on a targeted immunosuppressant.

However, improving my condition? I'm sorry, I didn't realise that I was in a bad condition. Aside from having to manually keep my blood sugar stable, I'm perfectly healthy. Properly treated diabetes has no symptoms, aside from the odd hypoglycaemia.I have no complications, and in all likelyhood never will.
Either I need the jabs, or I don't. Reduced insuline needs is actually a worse situation, because when you're producing insuline, the number of units required is no longer directly proportional to the amount of carbs ingested. It makes functional insuline therapy hell, or completely useless.

But right now, there is no cure. Neither for type 1 or type 2.

Well, sorry to burst your bubble but there's a world outside of the USA.

Ooooh, acupuncture. I'm sure that will restore my beta cells which are all dead.

(sorry to all the other slashdotters for the sarcasm, but as a type 1 diabetic I'm sick of hearing I can be cured by wishful thinking and cow's piss)

I'm in Europe. Stem cells have been used for type 1, but only in certain cases where it was after surgical removal of part of the pancreas (for other reasons). Stem cells are completely useless in autoimmune type 1, until we can actually stop the autoimmune response. There has been research using stem cells alone, but it only reduced the amount of insuline needed, which for a type 1 diabetic (like me) doesn't really make that much of a difference.

As for type 2, it can also help reduce the amount of insuline needed, but doesn't solve the problem with insuline resistance, which is the main problem.

So no, except for a few very specific cases, neither form has been cured.

Diabetes is something you're never cured from. No matter what such and such a diet might say, it may greatly improve things, but the diabetes is still there. Fasting blood sugar over 126 is a sign that something is up. Starting lifestyle changes and/or beginning treatment early on helps slow down the progression, and avoids later complications. In this case it actually reduces the number of patients with severe complications... It's not a case of declaring people diabetic who aren't really. It's a case of getting it under control before it progresses too much. Because if you hit 130, without at least diet changes, the diabetes is most definitely going to get worse.