Researchers at the University of Warwick’s Warwick Medical School have uncovered a process that locks the body’s metabolism in a diabetic state after only relatively limited exposure to high glucose levels.Researchers were already aware that there seems to be a point of no return in the onset of diabetes. This was apparent in the Diabetes Complications and Control Trial (DCCT) in the 1990s when Type 1 diabetic patients were either placed on standard or intensive treatment regimens to normalize their glucose levels. Because complications were so profoundly reduced in patients with tight glucose control, all the remaining DCCT patients were switched early onto intensive therapy. However a follow-up study found that several years after switching to intensive therapy the patients who started the trial on only the standard treatment regimen continued to have more complications than those who received intensive therapy throughout the trial.
