I went to an interesting event last night and I wanted to share it with you all. It was at the Royal Free Hospital in London. First there were a couple of introductory talks - one about the basics of diabetes, one about the history of diet in the treatment of diabetes. The diet talk was interesting - pne of the early treatments for diabetes was carb counting in order to starve the diabetic, there are many harrowing images of children in this condition. Nowadays it seems we have come back to carb counting but this time not to restrict eating but to increase freedom.

The next talk was on pumps and sensors, there are only a few on the Uk market and sensors must be self-funded anyway so are out of most people's range but it was interesting anyway. I did not know that with a pump you do not take long acting insulin. That worries me as if the pump failed I might go into DKA very quickly. I have a habit of dropping electronic items like MP3 players or getting them wet, I would be worried that something might happen if I was out and forgot to bring spare parts or something. I am not sure I like the idea of being so dependent on a piece of electronic gadgetry. If I make a mistake with my pen, it is my mistake and I know how to fix it. The pumps looked complicated and if something went wrong I might not know what to do about it or how to correct it. It is probably academic though since I do not have a paralysing fear of needles and/or hypos, I am probably not eligible for a pump on the NHS anyway.

Then there was a talk on transplants. First they talked about whole pancreas transplants which are very risky and only given to people who need kidney transplants. Then they went into islet transplants which sound good in theory but they have not made enough progress yet. Apparently the islets are transplanted into the liver which does not have enough oxygen to sustain them for longer than a few years. But there are benefits to transplants - people can get their HBA1Cs down to near normal levels without the risk of hypos. However the immunosuppressant drugs you need to take seem to poison the islets. Stem cells might help although since type 1 is an autoimmune condition, if you used a person's own stem cells to create islets and successfully transplanted them, there is no guarantee that the immune system would not destroy them again as it did to their original cells.

The final talk was on 'closed loop systems' where a glucose sensor and a pump talk to each other. It was quite mathematical and complicated and by then it was about 9pm, and the doctor giving the talk had a strong East European accent so I found it difficult to understand but it looked like they were doing interesting research.

We were also shown an interesting film of the doctor RD Lawrence, who was also one of the first diabetics to use insulin, the co-discoverer of insulin Charles Best, and another doctor in conversation. It was a fascinating historical artefact.

Basically, what last night told me was that there are several different areas of research going on, not just pumps. It also emphasised that pumps are not for everyone, each of us is an individual and we must find a way of managing our condition which is best for us. It showed how far we have come in a short time with diabetes treatment and gave me hope for the future.