A while back our aging cat, Mora, was diagnosed with, essentially, feline diabetes. The vet tested her urine and found it to be extremely high in unprocessed sugars. The immediate result of this test was spending over $1,000 on vet services (the smallest part of the bill) and blood glucose testing gear and insulin (the largest part of the bill).

I am a deeply cynical person for any number of reasons one of which might be a fault in the chemistry of my brain. Be that as it may I just have to take a moment to call bullshit on the state of diabetes treatment in today’s world. Yes, the testing of blood glucose has become orders of magnitude easier than it once was. The delivery of insulin is better and more accurate now than ever before, but that is where the good news abruptly ends.

Here it is: If diabetes were cured tomorrow the economic upheaval would be disastrous for businesses around the world. A pill to cure diabetes would never see the light of day due to the massive pharmacological complex fueled by monitoring and insulin delivery.

Even a cursory look at diabetes statistics shows that, among other things, it is a growing market for both medical device manufacturers and insulin producers.

Today more than ever before the person who cures a disease might be hailed a hero and savior of millions, but the pharma giant that keeps a disease chronic and, better still, keeps sufferers locked in to using their products exclusively, gets hailed with yet another positive quarterly report, continued employment for many people and a triple A investment rating.

Don’t even get me started on cancer.

As for Mora I’m happy to report that as of this writing her blood glucose is in the normal range without injecting insulin for more than 24 hours. We moved her to a high-protein, low-carb diet months ago and it seems, after several months of insulin injections, the islets of Langerhans in her little cat pancreas have rebooted to a greater or lessor extent. We’ll keep monitoring her glucose with the expensive device and inelegant procedure, but we remain hopeful she may not need injections, which, ironically are the easiest part of the process. Step 4 of the monitoring procedure, tersely stated in the instructions, “Obtain blood sample from animal,” remains stressful for all concerned parties.