Joining us now to celebrate a really, really significant milestone is a woman who has not only been living with type one diabetes for fifty years, which we're going to get to why that is so absolutely incredible in just a moment, but I would go so far as to say, because Dana Davis got type one diabetes as a child, the entire city of Denver and the surrounding areas for miles and miles have benefited through the Barbara Davis Center, through the Children's Diabetes Foundation, and all of the work
that they've done to get us from fifty years ago when finding out you a type one diabetes probably meant a shorter lifespan to last Friday where at the Barbara Davis Center or Children's Diabetes Foundation, not know where the actual metal ceremony took place, they actually honored people who had been living with type one diabetes for at least fifty years, which is insane. And now Dana Davis, the
executive director, joins me to talk about it. It wasn't just you, though, Dana, but you did get your medal on Friday.
Hi, thank you so much for having me here. I did get my medal and it was super exciting and thrilling to get it because when I was diagnosed, just like so many of the other people that were there with me, we were told that we'd probably lived thirty or forty years. A lot of people were discouraged from having kids. Life was just so different, and we celebrated
this day. There was eighty six of us there, but there are actually four over four hundred and sixty patients at the Barbara Davis Center living and thriving with type one for more than fifty years, some up to seventy five years, which is unbelievable and incredible.
So let's talk about Dana and I were talking off the air before we just started this segment, and you said something that I thought was very interesting. You said, for you, you almost got more out of Friday's medal ceremony than some of the kids because the way type one diabetes impacts their lives is so different now then the way your life as a child was impacted, just because of the advancements that have been made. So isn't that a wonderful bit of progress to talk about.
There's a huge bit of progress. I mean, there is the way technology has sped up, how diabetes is treated. Now, we now have continuous glucose monitors where we know what our but sugar is every five minutes. Back then, we didn't even have blood testing. We had urine testing. It was totally inaccurate. We have insulm pumps. Now. When I was diagnosed, you were given one shot in the morning. Park was the first one. I was allergic to it. The next day I went back and they gave me beef.
It was cloudy. You could see stuff floating.
Now, you know, we.
Had to boil needles and now we have I mean, insulm pumps and we have really insolence and disposable needles.
And it's a different world. And it was kind of nice to be around a bunch of people that grew up with Type one the same way I did, because you know, it's so hard to remember that fifty years ago how far we've come, which only means I really believe the next fifty years is going to happen in twenty five, like I believe we will have some form of a cure, whatever that will look like in the next twenty five years.
Oh, I just read a story recently about a crisper gene treatment that is yeah, They're literally modifying the genetic code for people who have type one diabetes and it turns on their spleen and all of a sudden they are able to completely eliminate their dependence on influence. I can't even imagine. And this has only been done a few times. We're not talking about a widespread study yet, So I don't want people to think it's going to be here tomorrow, right, I want to manage expectations a
little bit. Absolutely, But that's incredible. That's a that we are so close to a cure for type one diabetes. And let's be real, folks, fifty years ago was not eighteen ninety five with the cloudy influence. That was nineteen seventy five. Okay, so this is not the Dark Ages, but that's how much in the Dark Ages treatment for type one diabetes was back then. So I mean data.
Exactly, go go ahead, No, sorry, I was just going to say things with the crisper and stuff is important to look at and know because one of the things you want to make sure is that the cure isn't worse than the actual disease. So sometimes still, you know, there's a lot of anti rejection drugs involved with things that are types of cures, right, says, So you want to make sure you know, like those are one thing
that's being focused on. Another thing is getting tested. If you have the markers, you have four markers, your A one C starts to raise. You can come and get an infusion. That's why we're trying to encourage people to get tested. You can get an infusion for two weeks and it could push off the onset of type one diabetes for many years. So when I say cure, I mean it can look like it's more than just one thing, right. A cure can be multiple things, and that's what we're so excited about.
Well, go into that just a little bit. What you just mentioned. What are the four markers? What what? What if they want to look for them?
And I should know what they are and I do not, but I shall learn it for the next time. But I know there are four markers. So at the Barbara Davis Center, we do free testing so people can come, they can get tested, they can see if they have the markers for type one diabetes along with to see if they have celiac and we then can follow you
and know if you have the markers. They have a whole process they go through and Sonofi is a company that has created this drug called tezild t Zield is something that we have an infusion center at the barbar Davia Center and we can infuse you. It's thirty minutes a day. I mean, you have to go through it. I'm making it sound so much easier than it is, right, Yeah, but you know it's thirty minutes a day for two weeks. But in the past, it used to be people were like, well,
why would I get tested? There's nothing you can do right right now, Families, if you have it in your history and you can get tested and you can do something to prolong the onset, I mean, that's incredible and eventually continue to prolong it, maybe as another form of a cure. Saying say, we've never said a cure, like the Children's Diabetes Foundation, the Barber Data Center. We've never
been like, we have a cure. We've been very careful and we really feel what it is in our grasp within the next you know, twenty two decades, which I think is a huge deal.
Oh No, I think it's I think it's I keep saying all of this stuff that's happening right now with medicine and the way they're using AI to sort of move things along at a rate that is it's just incomprehensible in terms of the ability to speed the process along. I'm with you. I feel very optimistic that we're going to find a way to help people live a perfectly normal life without necessarily worrying about their type one diabetes very soon.
Absolutely, kids can live. I mean, somebody who gets it when they're five, when they're one, they can live until they're nineties, happy and healthy, and that's that's like the greatest gift ever.
Right Well, Dana, congratulations to you and all of those over fifty year folks who are living and thriving with type one diabetes. I'm glad you had that experience where you all got to get together. And I'm guessing some war stories were traded.
Back in our day. This is what we had to do.
With the kids that are there now, with their continuous glucose monitors and their you know, influin pumps, they can't even imagine, they can't fathom it. It's great to though, Dana.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you for having me.
Oh that's Dana Davis. It's my pleasure. We'll talk again soon. Dana, have a great day.