http://www.diabetes.org/diabetesnewsarticle.jsp?storyId=20600854&filename=200907
27/reuters20090727health00000018reutershealthewEDIT.xml

or

http://tinyurl.com/m9hdny

(excerpt)

CHICAGO (Reuters) - People with type 1 diabetes who can get their
blood sugar to near-normal levels can cut their long-term risk of
serious complications in half, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

For people with type 1 diabetes -- formerly called juvenile diabetes
-- intervening early with aggressive measures to control blood sugar
worked far better than conventional care at reducing blindness, kidney
failure, and heart disease in people who had lived with the disease
for at least three decades.

"I think this is extremely exciting," said Dr. Trevor Orchard of the
University of Pittsburgh, who worked on the study published in the
Archives of Internal Medicine.

"This halving virtually of the major complications ... I think is a
very dramatic improvement and demonstrates that good intensive therapy
from early on is very beneficial," Orchard said in a telephone
interview.

Type 1 diabetes represents about 10 percent of the 180 million cases
of diabetes globally. It occurs when the immune system goes haywire
and starts destroying insulin-producing cells in the pancreas needed
to control blood sugar.

These patients typically need daily insulin to control their diabetes,
which is a different disease from the far more common type 2 diabetes
-- a condition linked with obesity and lack of exercise.