Now, back to the question: Will diabetes be cured in the 21st century?

In my opinion, type 1 diabetes, which is usually considered a disorder caused by immune problems, will be preventable as a result of immune methods: perhaps a vaccine, or medications that prevent the immune destruction of the beta cells. There will also be methods to create long-lasting drug-free remissions of type 1 diabetes, perhaps based on better beta-cell transplantation techniques.

In my opinion, type 2 diabetes, which is a disorder with both beta cell malfunction and insulin resistance, will be preventable, by societal changes that de-emphasize overeating, meaning less middle-aged adults will be obese. Less obesity equals less insulin resistance. Type 2 diabetes, once established, will be able to go into remission by weight loss -- nothing new!

But somehow I suspect that established cases of diabetes (whether type 1 or type 2) will not be curable anytime in the foreseeable future. The closest I see is that someday physicians might somehow use stem cells to regenerate the beta cells that make insulin in people with type 1 diabetes -- without using antirejection medications. I really can't put a timeline on this, and it might never work. And curing type 2 diabetes would require interventions that tackle both the beta cell malfunction and the insulin resistance, and I doubt that this will be possible.

My standards for documentation of a diabetes cure are tough: I won't accept any purported cure until the scientists who figure it out win the Nobel Prize in Medicine. (By the way, this would be the second Nobel for diabetes -- the first being for the discovery of insulin).