Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Gary on March 17, 2012 at 2:03pm

I'd bet B&B would be amazingly shocked if they were alive to see the current diabetes treatment is still basically what they discovered nearly a century ago. My guess is after they discovered insulin to use externally they probably would have thought that someone would have eventually cured the disease. Someone eventually will but the question is when?

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Permalink Reply by Jen on March 17, 2012 at 2:24pm

When insulin was first discovered, people thought it was the cure. And, it would be the cure, were it not for complications and hypoglycemia. It wasn't until 40 years after its discovery that doctors started linking diabetes to later complications.

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Permalink Reply by Type1Gal on March 17, 2012 at 3:14pm

And, it would be the cure, were it not for complications and hypoglycemia. It

everyone knows insulin is not a cure, how could insulin be a cure...we still have to take it - inject it pump it and we're still diabetics whether we take it or not. cure means to get rid of the disease, diabetes is just a 'medication' to control - manage it.

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Permalink Reply by Jen on March 18, 2012 at 11:50am

I dunno. If I had to take one shot a day, same dose each day, didn't have to monitor everything, and had no danger of going high or low, no danger of complications ... I'd consider that a cure.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on March 18, 2012 at 9:58am

It wasn't until 40 years after its discovery that doctors started linking diabetes to later complications.

I don't think that's quite true. In the 1940's living for T1 for 25 years got you a Joslin medal - because few T1's were living that long even with insulin. There was a long list of complications, especially retinopathy, kidney disease, lack of circulation leading to amputations in the extremeties, etc, mentioned in Joslin's writings. For a long time it was taken as normal, that all juvenile diabetics had retinopathy by the time they'd had diabetes for 10 years. They had no way for diabetics to check bg's at home, nor did the A1C test exist, so correlating bg's with complications was not done.

What was the real breakthrough, was the DCCT in the early 90's. Before the DCCT, there was a contingent of docs who thought that impurities in insulin were responsible for all the complications. Even though we take it for granted today, before the DCCT there was no good statistical evidence that high bg's led to the most common complications, or that controlling bg's through home bg tests could greatly reduce the rate of complications. I think many of the most progressive endos believed or suspected this beforehand but there simply wasn't statistical proof. Having lived through that transition, wow, it was amazing. Before the DCCT, simply not dying was the goal met by taking insulin. Since the DCCT, tight control is the goal. It was like stone knives and bear skins before home bg testing.

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Permalink Reply by Jen on March 18, 2012 at 11:47am

Oops! You are right. I meant to say the 1940s, not 40 years.

I was diagnosed in 1991, several years before the DCCT ended. I was lucky that—at least to my memory—tight control (granted, that term didn't exist back then) was important from the start.

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Permalink Reply by Doris D on March 19, 2012 at 7:20am

Oh soo true Tim!! I refer to the time b/f the DCCT and hometesting as the "dark ages" I was diagnosed in 73. Sooooo many things have changed since then. It's really shocking what u can do now and how long ppl are living without complacations now.

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Permalink Reply by Richard157 on March 17, 2012 at 2:52pm

Hi, Doris! I have been watching the updated videos of the History of Insulin. Have you seen them? The picture posted here is in one of the videos.

So your T1 is evidently genetic, and mine isn't. I do not have relatives with T1. i have read that 70% of the T1's in the uS do not have any T1 among their relatives. I have encountered several people on Facebook who have as many as three T1's in their immediate family. Two mothers who post there have three T1 kids. I am glad it was not genetic in my family, my sons and my grandkids do not have T1. We feel very fortunate in that respect.

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Permalink Reply by acidrock23 on March 17, 2012 at 2:57pm

We had 1,054 nuclear weapons tests done by the USA. I've always blamed that. Maybe there's something to it?

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Permalink Reply by Richard157 on March 17, 2012 at 3:02pm

I have heard those tests being blamed for many things such as cancer and birth defects, but not diabetes. Since the environment has been connected with causing type 1, then what those tests did to our evironment might be partially to blame.

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Permalink Reply by Type1Gal on March 17, 2012 at 3:35pm

it's only a theory...they have no clue, really, what causes diabetes; momma had a flu when pregnant, breast fed, not breast fed, genetics, not genetic, environment. they don't really know what 'causes' the majority of chronic disease, illness.

we've never cured ONE disease in this country or any country, NOT one. We've vaccinated them into submission, developed, discovered medications, treatments to put them into remission but never a cure for anything! Stem Cell Research would hold a lot of promise but we know what that involves. Maybe we're not supposed to find cures for these diseases..we can't live forever. i was just thinkin' about this, for some reason I (we) were just supposed to get this. Maybe it's easier to accept if I think of it that way. Every thing on this planet, eventually, needs a 'replacement' of some type, we just can't find the replacement for out dead Islet Cells.

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Permalink Reply by LaGuitariste on March 17, 2012 at 3:27pm

I was raised in a family full of smokers and started at the age of 12 myself. Between that, all the petrochemical plants in Baton Rouge and the terrible water quality in New Orleans when I was a baby, I figure I'm luck that I didn't sprout three heads.

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