Word: insulin
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Currently, juvenile diabetes patients must take daily injections of insulin...
...potato and that starch hits the saliva in your mouth, its tightly bundled molecules immediately get turned into sugars, which make a beeline for the blood. "You ate a potato," says Stampfer, "but your body is getting pure glucose." The flood of blood sugar sets off a chain reaction. Insulin pours out of the pancreas. Triglycerides shoot up. HDL (good) cholesterol takes a dive. "It's a perfect setup for heart disease and diabetes," says Stampfer...
...problem, a move that was sparked in part by the epidemic rates of childhood obesity. Overweight children are more than twice as likely to have high blood pressure or heart disease as children of normal weight. Even more alarming is the number of children with Type 2, or non-insulin-dependent, diabetes. Once known as adult-onset diabetes--before so many children started getting it--Type 2 diabetes puts kids at risk for very adult ailments, including blindness, nerve damage, kidney failure and cardiovascular disease...
Daily injections of insulin are not simply a pain in the butt. For diabetics, they are taxing and inconvenient reminders of their disease. Studies of inhaled insulins, in the form of oral and powdered sprays, suggest that they may be nearly as effective as injections are in quickly normalizing blood-sugar levels. While no injection-free insulins have yet been approved by the FDA, doctors--and their diabetic patients--are looking forward to the day when those hated needles can be replaced by inhalers...
...Kamen's personality is half Willy Wonka, the other half is closer to Thomas Edison. While he was still struggling in college, Kamen invented the first drug-infusion pump, which enabled doctors to deliver steady, reliable doses to patients. In the years that followed, he invented the first portable insulin pump, the first portable dialysis machine and an array of heart stents, one of which now resides inside Vice President Dick Cheney. This string of successes established Kamen's reputation, made him wealthy and turned DEKA Research--the R.-and-D. lab he founded nearly 20 years ago, in which...