Behind the Scenes Minis: Insulin

Tracy and Holly discuss diabetes, insulin, and the moral complexities that are often part of scientific research.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm tracybe
Wilson and I'm Holly Friday. This week we spent both
of our episodes talking about the history of diabetes and

(00:21):
insulin and I think off Mike not while recording, Uh,
you mentioned there being various diabetes and your extended family. UM,
and then also when I was a kid growing up
in the eighties and nineties, UM, one of like my
long term school friends had type one diabetes, which was definitely,

(00:47):
I mean, it's still definitely a challenge to manage diabetes.
It's a lifelong, ongoing thing. But what she was having
to do in the eighties and nineties is very different
from what my friends that I have kept up with now,
Like now I know folks who have insulin pumps that
are delivering the insulin they need without this whole like

(01:08):
get the thing out of the refrigerator to inject yourself
process that she was having to do as a child.
There are definitely people that are still um injecting themselves
with syringes and insulin that has to be refrigerated. Like
once once you get on a management strategy that's working
for you, folks tend to be. Are you reluctant to
change that strategy because it could be a really big deal. Yeah,

(01:29):
I mean you're messing with your body chemistry in a
way that is potentially fatal at that point if you
start tweaking things without some pretty careful management. I think
I probably actually, at this point in my life, no
more about diabetes and cats than humans. Um, none of
mine thus far, And I knock would because I am superstitious,

(01:50):
even though I know that's silly. Um have had it,
but I have had a lot of friends who have
had cats with it. And because our friend group tends
to trade around cat kid air and some of my
friends are a little squeamish about needles, there have been
certainly been times when I have been the one to
be like, I will admitis through this. Yeah, Yeah, it's

(02:12):
an interesting thing. It's fascinating to me because I personally
tend to be the other way. I have low blood
sugar naturally, and I'm more in danger of like not
having enough protein to keep me going, which is far
less scary and easier to manage through diet. Although my
understanding is that you know, that's one of those things
that your body can kind of switch gears and and

(02:34):
UH turn it into a much more scary diabetic situation
as you get older. Knock on wood eating all the protein. Yeah. Well,
and we didn't really talk about this part of We
talked a lot about the pancreas and the podcast, but
we did not talk about how in in most people,
the way that UH type one diabetes develops is that

(02:55):
the immune system attacks the islet cells and the pancreas
for some reason. So as doctors are trying to find
ways to treat diabetes itself rather than using insulin as
a management strategy for diabetes, like, one of the things
is trying to keep the body from doing that in
the first place. But as is the case with so

(03:16):
many autoimmune issues, the thing that causes the body to
do that can be a whole range of different, um,
different things. Yeah, I'm curious. Um, I know we had
to stop at one point because I had my ridiculously
emotional reaction to discussion of dogs. Yes, for anyone that

(03:38):
knows that I am not a vegetarian, I understand that
is complex and doesn't always make sense to everyone. Um,
it's interesting to me how emotionally fraught some of these
stories can be. And I'm into the dog thing, but
really what like hurt my heart was reading about the
ways that they were limiting the new t fition of

(04:00):
children to treat this. Yeah, was there other stuff that
you found that maybe didn't make it in that was
similarly along them thing that you were like not this. Uh.
Some of the things that I read went into more
detail about the dog research um and especially older like

(04:22):
more detail of those earlier studies that people were doing
on dogs before banting and best or doing anything um
and like some of that is just horrifying to read
the details of I like I at a couple of
different points in my life have been vegetarian for animal

(04:42):
rights reasons, and like I opted out of taking anatomy
and physiology in high school because I didn't want to
have to dissect animals. Um. So a lot of that
stuff is like really difficult for me. Like I do
I do eat meat now, but most of my meals
are not do not include meat. And like I'm also

(05:03):
the persons behind the humanely raised eggs and all of that.
Oh yeah, so reading about that was all really hard.
But at the same time, like, there are so many
people in my life who need insolent to live, and
they would not be here if people had not done
that work, which makes it complicated rights. I mean, that's

(05:24):
really the thing I feel like. This is always my
takeaway and something I always try to convey to people
when talking about history, is that none of it is
clean and easy. None of it is like a black
and white they did everything correctly, and we can feel
good about this because most advancements that have led to
the creature comforts we enjoy today or the life saving

(05:46):
things that we need today and and have access to.
And I use that in the very very slushy nature
because I know not everyone has ready access to it,
but in terms of it just having been developed does
come things that are uncomfortable and morally difficult in many cases.
So that's kind of the the dance you have to

(06:07):
do when you're looking at some of this historical uh,
the historical record in terms particularly with scientific development, and
it's kind of hard to square I think we I know,
I would rather certainly that things be black and white
and simple, but they're not. And kind of finding your
way through that that middle range and the ambiguity of

(06:30):
not being able to say something was like all done
perfectly without any tainting to the moral dilemma. Is uh,
that's a trick. I can't do it. Yeah, history, Why
why must you be so cloudy? I have that question
so many times working on the show. Yeah. So yeah,

(06:53):
I'm also glad that there's you know, there's been so
many developments and and insulin and how it's made and
how it works and how it acts in the body
and insulin analogs and all that stuff. Um Like, just
like I said earlier, when I have been in the
same room with somebody he was taking their insulin seven

(07:14):
versus now, like it's just a more comfortable process for
the Yeah, I would say now than in so even
in our lifetimes, there have been these changes. Oh yeah,
I mean when I was a kid, I was probably six,
I think I was in first grade, Like one of

(07:34):
my classmates went into a diabetic coma, and you know,
it was she was a neighbor and it was very
touch and go and we didn't know if she was
going to be okay. And I remember like that was
my first exposure to diabetes, and like trying to have
this explained by my dad, who was trying to be
very scientific, but like was giving me way more than

(07:55):
I was intellectually ready for. I just remember being like,
what do you mean sugar can kill you? Wait? And
I became a little scared of cupcakes for a minute,
for a minute, and it was one of those things.
And now when I look back, I think, like today,
that whole situation would have been completely different. Yeah, I
mean that can definitely still happen, and it's still a

(08:16):
terrifying experience the available course of action exactly, So yeah,
still still room for more that improved. Yeah, like so
many things that we talked about on the show. So
this is an ongoing development, right, maybe next year there

(08:36):
will be a magical thing in this episode will be outdated.
I would yeah, if it makes it. I mean, given
that we often have that problem where we talk about
a thing and immediately it becomes slightly outdated because someone
discovers the next scientific or technological advance, uncovers another historical
fact that changes the context of everything. So we maybe

(09:00):
we're initiating it and catalyzing it by putting it in
the universe. That would be cool. Uh So yeah, thanks
everybody for tuning in. On this cadital Friday. If you
want to send us an email about any anything, we're
at History Podcast I heart radio dot com. Uh and
you know, subscribe to our show if you haven't on

(09:20):
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