14/12/2025
Not everything is ‘incurable.’ Modern medicine has moved beyond outdated labels—many chronic conditions can now be cured, reversed, or placed into long-term remission.
The claim that diseases such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, asthma, epilepsy, HIV/AIDS, and sickle cell anaemia “cannot be cured but only managed” is an outdated and overly simplistic view of modern medicine. While it was once widely accepted, advances in medical science have shown that this blanket statement is no longer accurate.
Firstly, these conditions are biologically and clinically different and therefore cannot be grouped under a single conclusion. Hypertension, for example, may be completely reversible when it is secondary to identifiable causes such as renal or endocrine disorders, and even primary hypertension can resolve with sustained lifestyle modification. Similarly, type 2 diabetes mellitus has been shown in numerous studies to enter long-term remission through weight loss, dietary changes, and bariatric surgery, allowing many patients to discontinue medication entirely. To describe these conditions as permanently incurable ignores strong clinical evidence.
Secondly, several of the listed diseases are, in fact, curable in a significant proportion of patients. Epilepsy is a clear example, as many individuals become permanently seizure-free with appropriate drug therapy or curative surgical intervention. Asthma, particularly in childhood, may completely resolve in adulthood, and modern biologic therapies and immunotherapy can render the disease inactive. Sickle cell anaemia, once considered incurable, now has definitive cures through bone marrow transplantation and recently approved gene-based therapies.
Lastly, even in conditions where a universal cure is not yet available, such as type 1 diabetes and HIV/AIDS, medical progress has dramatically altered outcomes. HIV infection is no longer a fatal disease, as antiretroviral therapy can suppress viral replication to undetectable levels, preventing transmission and allowing normal life expectancy. Moreover, documented cases of functional cures and ongoing gene therapy research demonstrate that the concept of “no cure” is evolving.
In conclusion, the assertion that these diseases can only be managed reflects outdated medical knowledge. Modern medicine recognizes that many of these conditions can be cured, reversed, or placed into long-term remission. Therefore, it is inaccurate and misleading to present them as uniformly incurable without acknowledging current scientific evidence and therapeutic advances.
