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Hanna Diabetes Expert, Zürich (2026)

16/02/2026

🧬 Stem cells & diabetes — where are we really?

A 2026 review in Diabetes & Metabolism looked at the major clinical trials investigating stem cell–based therapies for diabetes. This is a fast-paced field! 🚀

In summary: 🤓

✨ The goal: Restore insulin production or protect remaining beta cells. To move beyond lifelong insulin therapy. 🎯

🔬 Main approaches:
• Embryonic & induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) → turned into insulin-producing cells and transplanted
• Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) → don’t make insulin, but may reduce inflammation and support beta cells
• Encapsulation devices → aim to protect transplanted cells from immune attack (without lifelong immunosuppression)

🚀 Big developments:
• Programs like Vertex’s VX-880 (zimislecel) have shown restored insulin production and major reductions in insulin needs in early trials.
• Some participants have achieved insulin independence (but most approaches still require immunosuppression).
• Autologous (derived from the person) stem cell strategies are emerging.

⚠️ Remaining challenges:
• Immune rejection
• Need for immunosuppression
• Long-term safety (tumor risk)
• Device durability & vascularization
• Scalability & cost

📌 Bottom line:
Stem cell therapy for diabetes is no longer science fiction. It’s clinically real, but still quite far from routine care. The next few years will be critical.

For those of us living with type 1 diabetes, this is one of the most closely watched frontiers in medicine. 👀

08/01/2026

💙 40 years of T1D 💙

Last month (last year!) marked my 40th diaversary. This is a b i g milestone that I’m finally ready to celebrate openly.

40 years of daily decisions & invisible work. 40 years of adapting, learning, recalibrating. 40 years of living a full life with type 1 diabetes, and not despite it.

This isn’t about perfection or heroism. It’s about showing up. Again and again.

Today I’m celebrating endurance, progress, community, and the lived experience that shapes who I am, personally and professionally.

Still here. Still curious. Still deeply grateful for the people, and systems, that make living well possible.

To many, many more. ✨

💙 If you’ve walked a long road with diabetes (or another condition), this celebration is for you too.

17/12/2025

How do blood sugar extremes shape your brain function? 🤔

We’re only beginning to understand how glucose extremes affect cognitive function.

New research shows that both low and high glucose levels affect your brain in different ways.

The paper Glucose Extremes and Cognitive Function (Diabetes Spectrum, 2025) reviews evidence on how very low (hypoglycemia) and high (hyperglycemia) blood glucose levels affect brain function in people with type 1 diabetes.

Key takeaways from the review:

• When glucose dips too low → the brain’s energy supply gets cut, leading to slower thinking, trouble with memory & decision-making.
• When glucose spikes too high → blood vessels and neurotransmitter systems get stressed, which can also slow processing and affect attention.
• These effects aren’t only momentary. Repeated extremes can change brain structure and cognitive abilities (memory, attention, executive function, and processing speed) over time.
• Tools like CGM could help protect your brain beyond what A1C can tell us.

What’s especially important? Cognitive health should be part of diabetes care to help preserve healthy bodies and healthy brains. 🧠 💙

10/12/2025

💌 Postcard from Bangkok 🇹🇭✨

Traveling reminds me how powerful it is to let go every now and then. 🙏

To switch things up. Context, culture (appreciate, not appropriate), routines, foods, languages, lessons, even time zones.

There’s something freeing about stepping out of your usual patterns. You see yourself more clearly. You notice what actually matters. This trip is a beautiful reminder that magic happens outside your comfort zone!

And yes… choosing not to go to even while being “around the corner” comes with a mix of FOMO and JOMO… But also a reminder that rest, perspective and presence are part of the work, too. 🤍

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04/12/2025

Are we blaming people for a food system they can’t control? 🤔

A powerful new article in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology highlights a reality that affects all of us.

Kevin Hall, one of the world’s leading nutrition scientists, recently left the US National Institutes of Health after saying his research on ultra-processed foods (UPFs) was censored.
 Why? Because his findings challenged the popular “UPF addiction = dopamine hits like drugs” narrative. His latest study showed that most people don’t get the dramatic dopamine spikes we’ve been told about. Meaning the story of UPFs is more complex than “our brains are addicted to sugar”.

But the real takeaway is bigger than dopamine.

Hall and journalist Julia Belluz, in their book “Food Intelligence”, show how our food environment shapes our choices far more than individual willpower ever could:

• Ultra-processed foods are cheap, everywhere, and aggressively marketed. • Whole foods are often unaffordable. You can get 12 donuts for $0.99 vs four apples for $9. • Industry incentives aren’t aligned with human, animal, or environmental health. • And people living with obesity end up carrying the stigmatized blame for a system they didn’t build.

This matters for health. It also matters for equity.
 When healthy options are inaccessible, blaming individuals is not only unhelpful, it’s not fair.

If we want better outcomes, we must look at what shapes them. Food environments = health outcomes. You can’t expect people to achieve long-term health if the system makes nutritious choices unrealistic or unaffordable. Value, when talking about healthcare, is created long before a person walks into a clinic, in their daily reality.
 Right now, those crucial, health-maintaining options are working against people, not for them.

If we’re serious about healthcare and disease prevention, we must improve the food systems people live in. Because no amount of motivation or education can overcome an environment designed to undermine health.

We deserve policies, incentives, and environments that support better outcomes. For us all. 💚

26/11/2025

Should people with lived experience have a seat at every table? 🤔

If you’ve been here a while… you already know my thoughts on this. 😉💙

That’s why I’m incredibly excited to share that I’ll be speaking at health.tech | global summit 2026 — and also hosting one of the stages on Day 2! 🤩

We’ll dive into a topic that’s close to my heart: ➡️ How do we meaningfully strengthen patient engagement across healthcare and research?

Because engaging patients once is not enough.
True progress requires continuous collaboration, transparency, and making sure the patient/lived experience voice is heard at every stage, from clinical studies and medicine development to provider visits, system design, and healthcare events.

If this is a conversation you care about too, I’d love to see you there. 🙌🏼

📍 3–5 March 2026 | Basel, Switzerland

Let’s make the future of healthcare more human, together. 💫

20/11/2025

Type 1 Diabetes is more than one story…

Did you know that T1D isn’t always the same? The journey can differ hugely from one person to another, depending on age at diagnosis, speed of progression, how many beta-cells are left working, how the immune system behaves… And all of these vary from person to person.

A recent expert review (Evans-Molina et al.) describes this as a “palette of risk factors” and “gradients of aggressiveness”. And not a single pattern.

Why does this matter? Because if we understand the differences, we can:
 🌟 Predict better who is at risk or how fast things might change 🌟 Use therapies that are matched to the person at the right time, not just the disease at large 🌟Design research and care that recognises sub-groups and responders

Whether you live with T1D, support someone who does, or work in the clinic or lab, keeping in mind that T1D is multidimensional helps us all. 🙏

👉 If you feel like your experience with T1D has been different to what “textbooks say”, you’re not alone.

A big thank you to for recently highlighting this paper for me 💙

14/11/2025

This year’s 💙 World Diabetes Day 💙 theme hits close to home. Diabetes in the Workplace is not just a slogan, it’s a reality many/all of us have to consider every single day. Especially with 80% of people with diabetes saying they have felt blamed or ashamed for living with the condition.

For me, choosing to work independently wasn’t just a professional decision. It was also a necessary act of self-care. The flexibility it brings means I can manage type 1 diabetes the way I need to, whether it’s changing a sensor or pump site, rescheduling when my body demands rest, or simply creating an environment that supports my health and not fight against it (like I have felt the need to in previous jobs).

Of course, going independent also allows me to do the work I love, like educating✨ consulting ✨ advocating✨researching ✨ contributing to meaningful change✨ and yes, travelling the world to collaborate, speak, and learn ✨

But underneath all of that is a simple truth; thriving with diabetes requires space. Space to adapt. Space to listen to your body. Space to show up fully, not just as a professional, but as a human being living with a relentless condition.

My hope for Diabetes in the Workplace is that more (work) environments become places where people with diabetes don’t have to choose between their health and their careers. Where flexibility is a norm, not an exception. Where lived experience is respected, and not questioned.

Let us create workplaces (and a world!) where we can all do our best work without sacrificing our wellbeing. 💙

03/11/2025

What “living well” with Type 1 Diabetes means is being rewritten. 💪

The new ADA/EASD draft consensus guidelines for 2026 were published recently, finally reflecting some of what many of us have been saying for years:

💙 Care should be about more than blood sugar
🥦 Low-carb approaches can be safe and effective
🤖 Technology belongs at the heart of care
🧠 Emotional wellbeing matters as much as HbA1c

Progress takes time, always. Yet, this feels like a big step forward. 💙

👉🏼 Swipe through to see my top 10 takeaways. 👀 ✨ What are yours?

20/10/2025

POV: You step out for a walk and suddenly it’s a full-blown main character moment 😎

Leopard headband on, sunshine glowing, podcast playing, just vibing my way through a Spanish afternoon. ☀️ 🌴

Who else uses walks as their best thinking time? 💭

14/10/2025

Last month, I had the privilege of following the IDF Europe Symposium at in Vienna on 🌟 “Integration of care — the way forward” 🌟

The message was clear 👉🏼 integration is the future of diabetes care. 👏 And what struck me most: we’re on the cusp of a shift in diabetes care that must centre on people living with diabetes (PWD), not on fragmented systems. 💙

It was fascinating to hear how different countries are building smoother, more connected care pathways in real-wold settings, but the Portuguese 🇵🇹 examples of integrated health delivery (Coimbra’s ULS & APDP Clinic) were especially inspiring. It shows what’s possible when care is coordinated across prevention, treatment, support, and follow-ups. 🙏

If we want better outcomes, better quality of life, and more respect in diabetes care, then integration isn’t optional, but rather necessary. 🔵 PWD deserve systems that are able to adapt to them and their needs, not necessarily the other way around! 🔵

(Coincidentally, In my recent book, “The Next Tango”, we explore how health care must evolve: from silos to connection; from episodic to continuous; from provider-led to person-centred.)

If you, like me, are passionate about what comes next in diabetes care, I hope this resonates. 👉🏼 Swipe through the slides and let me know your thoughts below! 👀

🩷

02/10/2025

🩺 New EASD Clinical Guidelines on Diabetes Distress (and feedback is open until end of October!)

📍 Just launched at in Vienna, the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) has published its first ever evidence-based clinical guideline focused entirely on diabetes distress. This is a groundbreaking step toward truly person-centered care. 🧠❤️

Why it matters:

• Diabetes distress refers to the emotional burdens, worries, guilt, burnout, and mental fatigue that arise from living with a chronic condition like diabetes.

• Up to 1 in 3 adults with type 1 or type 2 diabetes experience elevated diabetes distress — and many more report at least one problem area.

• The guideline emphasizes that asking about distress should be routine in care, not optional.

• It offers evidence-based recommendations (with GRADE assessments) for psychological, psychoeducational, educational, and tech-based interventions — tailored by diabetes type.

This is not just another guideline. It’s a statement: emotional well-being is integral to diabetes care, not an afterthought. 💡

Swipe through to learn more 👉 and check the link in bio to read the draft + share your thoughts. Let’s make this guideline reflect more real lived experience. 💬

Hanna Diabetes Expert

16/02/2026

08/01/2026

17/12/2025

10/12/2025

04/12/2025

26/11/2025

20/11/2025

14/11/2025

03/11/2025

20/10/2025

14/10/2025

02/10/2025

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