We’ve come to think of Type 1 diabetes as a condition where the pancreas just gives up the ghost, for good, end of story. But in recent years, researchers have grown increasingly skeptical of that tidy narrative.  Now, a new study seems to cast that idea even further in doubt.

Researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School (UK) recently found that nearly ¾ of all people with T1 still produce some insulin, no matter whether they’ve had diabetes for 5 months or 50 years.  Findings like this suggest that the T1 pancreas might be like an old dog that needs to learn a new trick, or at least relearn a trick it has forgotten.