Did Scientists Just Develop A Viable Cure For Type 1 Diabetes?

In what's being called one of the most important advances to date in the field, researchers at Harvard have used stem cells to create insulin-producing beta cells in large quantities. Human transplantation trials could only be a few years away.
By using human embryonic stem cells, a research team led by Doug Melton created human insulin-producing beta cells that are virtually equivalent to normally functional beta cells in the kind of large quantities required for cell transplantation and pharmaceutical purposes.

Currently, the cell-derived beta cells are undergoing trials in animal models, including non-human primates.

The results have been published in the latest edition of Cell. In the study, Melton describes a step-by-step procedure that starts with stem cells and results in hundreds of millions of the vital pancreatic cells that secrete the hormone insulin, which keeps blood sugar levels in balance. It's the lack of insulin produced by those cells — called beta cells — that's the root cause of type 1 diabetes.

http://io9.com/did-scientists-just-develop-a-viable-cure-for-type-1-di-1644798819

Amazing breakthrough for a disease that's far too often not taken very seriously by those who don't have it. Type I takes years off people's lives -- particularly among our native populations in the Americas who over thousands of years adapted to a very low-sugar diet. More than one out of every six Native Americans suffers from Type 1.

Glad to see that stem-cell research has survived the Bush Error and is leading to progress in the medical field. Progress -- often maligned and misappropriated, but in the long run, improving the lives of millions of people

Great news!

Type 1 is the one that is generally or usually developed in childhood right?
Type 2 being one that can be controlled by weight and diet?

See if there was a cure for type 2 (which the kind of is if your drop weight and eat right) then would people just use the drugs and not the diet??

Anyhow, it is great news. The word "cure" is a great word whenever you hear it!