system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What's preventing us from curing diabetes?

Aside from things like lack of funding, what are some of the scientific/medical field obstacles? Are we just not at a high enough level of understanding? Does bioethics come into play anywhere? As a type 1 diabetic with some, albeit little, knowledge, I'm more than curious as to what's stopping us!

Edit : To everyone who has participated, I am unbelievably grateful for your time. All this information is extremely helpful! Thank you! 

I have so much love and respect to everyone who has, has lost, or is losing someone to, diabetes. Love every second of your lives, guys. I'm here for anyone who is effected by this or other correlated disease. I am but a message away.
gpt
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disorder. This means that the patient's own immune system is attacking the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Why the immune system does this is related to genetic and environmental factors.

Because these cells are destroyed, the pancreas cannot make insulin, but the other cells of the body can sense and use insulin normally. 
To cure this we need to:

a--help the pancreas recover it's damaged cells

b--find a way to block the immune system's attack.

We are working on this, and have made many promising strides with stem cells! 


Type 2 diabetes is an entirely different thing. That is mostly a metabolic disorder. Some genes and environmental factors can be involved, but usually it is caused by a Western diet. High sugar, high carbs, plus sedentary lifestyle will make your normal cells unresponsive to the massive waves of insulin they are being bombarded with. The pancreatic cells work just fine. They make insulin just fine (though as the disease progresses, the pancreas starts giving up). Your regular cells ignore insulin. The glucose stays in your blood and wreaks havoc on your nerves, kidney, heart, blood vessels, while your cells think that you are starving. 

You can sometimes reverse (but not exactly cure) type 2 early on by eating well, losing weight, and exercising. Once it has advanced, however, the condition becomes chronic with compounding issues (neuropathies, cardiac disease...ect)