THE TEENAGER WHO'S TAKING ON THE INSULIN INDUSTRY: Rising insulin costs are forcing diabetics to go without. Here's who's doing something about it.

• Author: Foreman, Kelsie

"Type 1 diabetics cannot survive without insulin," is the first thing Michelle Litchman, a nurse practitioner at the University Of Utah, says to me during our interview. She launches into an explanation as to why this is, but I stop her before she can continue, I've been living with Type 1 diabetes for the past 22 years.

I was only three years old when my Mom first noticed something was wrong. I had an unquenchable thirst, was perpetually exhausted, and my breath had an odd sweetness to it--hallmark signs that I was likely suffering from undiagnosed diabetes. She took me to the doctor, I was diagnosed later that day, and my entire life changed.

Unlike Type 2 diabetes--a disease where the body doesn't produce enough insulin to keep up with demand due to poor diet or obesity--my diagnosis meant that my body was attacking its own pancreas and could no longer produce any of the insulin needed to convert carbohydrates into usable energy (hence my feelings of exhaustion).

Diet and exercise are usually enough to help patients manage Type 2, but I would have to monitor my blood glucose levels with a meter and inject insulin every time I ate a meal for the rest of my life.

AN INCREDIBLE DISCOVERY

Until the discovery of insulin in 1921 by University of Toronto scientists Sir Frederick G. Banting, Charles H. Best, and JJR Macleod, patients with Type 1 diabetes relied on a starvation diet to keep their readings at healthy levels.

On the diet, patients could only eat scant helpings of protein and vegetables with only a few grams of carbohydrates (bread, rice, other grain-based foods) to keep the body functioning. They were expected to live an average of three years, and--when their blood-glucose levels became so high they were rendered comatose--they were placed in a separate hospital ward to await their death.

In January of that year, when Banting and his team of scientists began injecting their comatose patients with their newly discovered medication, they discovered that it would rouse their patients from their comatose-state. Within hours of injection, most of their patients regained consciousness and their blood glucose levels returned to normal. Even better, patients with diabetes were now expected to survive into adulthood.

Following the discovery, Banting and his team sold the intellectual property rights to their insulin method for $3, priced low enough that diabetics everywhere would have access to the medicine that they needed. Without Banting's discovery, I wouldn't have survived past my third birthday, and I never would have been able to enjoy foods such as non-diet sodas, pizza, pasta, or cake.

However, despite the now widespread availability of the medication, prices have increased, forcing many diabetics...