Hey, just took this directly off the JDRF website. It can be found under their "research" section. Pretty uplifting stuff:
The Medalist Study, an ongoing project at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, is seeking to answer the question: Can complications of diabetes be avoided or stopped? The study has produced some important findings that may help to answer that question.
The study recruits patients with long-duration type 1 diabetes and has created a recognition program for people who have been insulin-dependent for 50 years or longer. The study shows that individuals with established type 1 diabetes (even those who have lived with the disease for 50 years or more) are still capable of producing insulin. It also found that even after 50 years, about 30% of the patients studied did not experience any of the common complications such as eye, kidney, or nerve disease. These findings show that complications can indeed be prevented, and they point the way toward the possibility of improved clinical outcomes for all people with type 1 diabetes.