Dutch scientists are working on a method that could cure type 1 diabetes through restoring insulin production. Prof. Dr. B. Roep, a leading international diabetes researcher connected to the Leiden University Medical Center, expects that this method could in the near future significantly improve or even completely cure this autoimmune disease, even in people who have been suffering from it for years. The Leiden researchers have found that patients with diabetes still have intact "beta cells", which in principle should be able to produce insulin again. "Insulin injections, which many patients (also with type-2 diabetes) do, is actually no more than fighting symptoms. We therefore want to directly intervene in the restart of the disrupted insulin production", Roep said to the Telegraaf. Diabetes is a growing problem all over the world, but also in the Netherlands. In November last year, Statistics Netherlands reported that 4.5 percent of the Dutch population has diabetes , compared to 2.5 percent in 2002.