Living Longer

By Scott Coulter I just read about the results of a study showing dramatically improved life expectancy for people living with Type 1 diabetes. The study compared life expectancy now as compared to life expectancy in 1975. The difference was over 15 years. Aside from being good news, it's an important reminder. I'm the first person to admit that complaining comes far too easily to me. I can whine with the best of them, and have wasted plenty of time in my life bemoaning what's "lacking," or lamenting my own obstacles. And living with a chronic, incurable major disease has certainly given me fuel for the fire on many occasions. In fact, my first reaction to the news was, "well, thank goodness it's not 1975, but diabetes still takes some years off" (which it does — when compared to the life expectancy of people without diabetes, we still fall about 10 years short). But then I softened a little bit, and some gratitude for living in this day and age of advanced management capabilities leaked into my outlook. And after reflecting a little further, I found an even deeper sense of gratitude. In 1912, diabetes was a death sentence. It was an absolutely incurable, progressive disease that led inevitably to death. In 1921 that changed when humans first isolated and injected insulin — cow and pig insulin at first, much less effective than the engineered rDNA insulin we use today. In the time between 1921 and today, technology has continued to advance in all areas, and each ...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - Category: Diabetes Authors: Source Type: blogs