RD201906

6 june 2019 | rd.com

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Reader’s Digest

DEAR READER

W

with type 1 diabetes. At the time, the

diagnosis was a death sentence.

Somehow this insurance man from

Huron, South Dakota, made his way

to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota,

where doctors were testing a new

drug. Charles was accepted as one of

the guinea pigs. He noted that each

day’s injection cost him a small for-

tune, though luckily he could afford it.

By the time the University of Toronto

team of doctors that had invented

insulin won a Nobel Prize, in 1923,

of life.

Family Secret

It was a shock, totally out of the blue.

There was no known history of diabetes

in my family.

For 20 years, I injected my insulin

and took care of myself, but still I felt

orphaned by my inexplicable disease.

Charles’s story changed that instantly.

As our cover story (see page 56)

makes clear, scientists still don’t have

answers for everything—far from it. No

one will ever know what triggered the

clinical subject. I thank them frequently.