Diabetes Insights - Breakthroughs and Innovators

How can people living with diabetes help shape the future of diabetes care?

In this episode of the EASD Podcast, recorded at the EASD Annual Meeting, Vivienne Parry is joined by Bastian Hauck and Renza Scibilia from the Diabetes Online Community (Dedoc).

Together, they discuss some of the key issues facing people living with type 1 diabetes today, including emerging off-label therapies such as GLP-1 receptor agonists, advances in continuous glucose monitoring, responsible use of health data, and the ongoing effort to end diabetes stigma.

The conversation highlights why people with lived experience must be involved at every stage of research, innovation and policy-making, ensuring that new therapies and technologies truly meet the needs of those they are designed to support.

Throughout the discussion, one message stands above all: "Nothing about us without us." It is a principle that Bastian championed throughout his work and one that continues to guide patient advocacy across the global diabetes community.

This episode is dedicated to the memory of our friend and colleague, Bastian Hauck, whose passion for patient advocacy and unwavering commitment to ensuring that people living with diabetes always had a voice continue to inspire us.

In this episode, Dr Jeroen van der Velde explores one of the most common questions in lifestyle medicine: does the time of day you exercise make a difference?

Drawing on the latest research presented at the EASD Annual Meeting, he discusses how exercise timing may influence glycaemic control, the role of circadian rhythms in metabolic health, and why later-day exercise appears to offer benefits for people living with or at risk of type 2 diabetes. The conversation also examines chronotypes, shift work, meal timing and the importance of personalised lifestyle advice, while reinforcing the key message that regular physical activity remains the most important goal.

In this episode, Elizabeth Robertson, Director of Research and Clinical at Diabetes UK, and Rachel Connor, Director of Research Partnerships at Breakthrough T1D, discuss why prevention has become one of the biggest topics in type 1 diabetes research.

They explore how decades of charity-funded research have led to exciting advances in immunotherapies that can delay the onset of type 1 diabetes, the growing importance of early screening programmes, and the promise of stem cell-derived beta cell therapies. They also explain why collaboration between researchers, charities, healthcare professionals, policymakers and people living with diabetes will be essential to ensure these breakthroughs become accessible treatments that improve lives worldwide.

In this episode, former EASD President Prof. Stefano Del Prato joins host Vivienne Parry to reflect on leading EASD during the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He shares how EASD rapidly transformed its Annual Meeting into a successful virtual event, unexpectedly reaching more than 20,000 participants worldwide and strengthening connections with the global diabetes community. The conversation explores how these experiences led to the creation of the EASD Global Council, expanded international collaboration and new initiatives that continue to shape the organisation today.

Prof. Del Prato also discusses the enduring value of face-to-face scientific meetings, the importance of bringing researchers together and the innovations that continue to make the EASD Annual Meeting one of the world's leading diabetes conferences.

In this episode, Prof. João Filipe Raposo (Portugal) and Prof. Harald Sourij (Austria) join Vivienne Parry to debate one of the most discussed topics in modern diabetes care: the role of artificial intelligence.

The conversation explores how AI is already being used to support diabetes management, including automated insulin delivery systems, continuous glucose monitoring and risk prediction. At the same time, the speakers examine the challenges of translating AI research into everyday clinical practice, highlighting the need for robust evidence, high-quality data and meaningful patient outcomes.

They also discuss data privacy, regulation, patient trust and why human expertise and empathy remain central to diabetes care. Discover how AI could shape the future of diabetes management and why careful implementation matters just as much as technological innovation.