12-10-24 Interview - Children's Diabetes Foundation on Colorado Gives Day

It is Colorado Gives Day, where we ask you to dig out your piggy bank and donate to your favorite charities. One of my favorite charities is well she is not my favorite charity, but she is working with the Children's Diabetes Foundation. Dana Davis, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for having me. We're so proud to be one of your favorite charities. Well you guys work with.

Well you said type two, but that type one with type one. So there are some amazing things that are happening, and there are some breakthroughs that are happening, and we're hoping and thinking and I know so many people think that's just so far down the line. But in like, we think in twenty years that would be a cure, and I know people feel like that's so far away.

What we're able to do is figure.

Out right now we can do where we put islet cells in the body, but we need to still give people anti rejection drugs. So to be honest, I would rather be type one right than beyond anti rejection correct.

Correct. So we're so close. We're so close. I didn't think I could ever say that before.

I actually just had a meeting with our researchers last week, and for the researchers were very honest and we're very sort of organic and specific about what we'll share.

For the first time, they told.

Me they feel like we're close.

Wow, that's got it. I mean, wouldn't it be great to have your organization go out of business because you weren't needed anymore? It would be that would be my ultimate goal.

Yeah, And for right now, our goal really is is to make sure that type ones who do have it are getting the best care possible.

Let's start with what's the difference between type one and type two? Because a lot of people are like, well, just lose them weight, that this is not a lifestyle disease. Type one diabetes totally different than type two diabetes. What is the difference?

So type one is an autoimmune disease and you can have markers. We can actually test and see if people have markers to predispose them to type one, and we actually can give infusions for two weeks that can delay the onset of type one. Oh wow, but type one is an autoimmune disease. You don't do anything, you don't You didn't cause it. Type two is more about lifestyle.

Is that why? Because everybody asked, well, why is it the Children's Diabetes Foundation when in reality, you can be diagnosed with type one diabetes at any point. You're thank you for saying that one hundred percent.

So when I was diagnosed, I was seven, and my parents called it the Children's Diabetes Foundation because at that time they called type one childhood diabetes and juvenile diabetes.

Right right now that's changed.

I mean I have board members that were twenty six and thirty one.

They were diagnosed.

You can get diagnosed when you're ninety with type one diabetes. You can be diagnosed at any age. And I'm really glad you brought that up because it's so important for people to know. We recently, you know, we have people that need to know the symptoms. Recently, there was a teenager who was misdiagnosed not through US, not through SeeU, but through somewhere else and unfortunately they passed away because they didn't get.

The proper care.

And all it is is a simple blood test and you'reine test, very simple test.

What are the symptoms to look for, Let's go ahead talk about that.

It's weight loss, it's fatigue, unexplained weight loss.

To be clear, Like, if you're on a diet you're losing weight, that doesn't mean you have type one diabetes. But if you all of a sudden start to shed.

Weight, shed weight, it's like twenty pounds in nothing flat, it's extreme thirst. Depending on your age, it's bed wedding. I was wedding my bed at seven. That was not normal, right, It's it's it's crankiness.

Well then I might have Type two guys.

I mean I say it continues through We're all a little cranky, right, Like, So it's that it's knowing the symptoms. We're working really hard on education too, and educating everyone. I think people just assume they know what type one diabetes is and says, oh, you know, you're too old to get it, or you're too healthy to get it, and that's it's almost like an invisible disease because so many people look so healthy you would never think they actually have it.

Well, it seems like now there are like managing diabetes. There's so many tools on the market now that are just crazy. The constant glucose monitor that for kids, that's just got to be a game changer. Well, it's a god sense. So imagine that you have a one.

Year old who can't quite tell you what's wrong with them, and you can look and see what their numbers are.

So I'm wearing one right now and.

It tells me twenty four hours a day on my phone what my blood sugars are, right, And it's something that in the future, they feel like all all people should be wearing at some point in time in their life because it's such an important thing.

To see how food and.

Activities affect you, not just as a type.

One right, but as a human being. There's some really interesting stuff happening right now when it comes to personalization. To your point and one of I just read an article a couple of weeks ago about a study that's happening now where people are wearing these glucose monitors and eating what is we've all been told is a healthy diet, but some people are finding out certain vegetables are making

Is cool, and it's cool that it can all springboard off of each other. There's so many things that with chronic illnesses.

That can help everybody.

And I think that's the one thing about you know, diabetes, is there's some really cool technologies that have happened that can help everybody.

No, I just got a question on the text line Mandy, ask her what it's called or what type of diabetes it is. When the person doesn't have a pancreas, so that will that's type one. Yeah, that's type and.

That's sometimes when people have cancer and they're pancreas is removed. I have a girlfriend who has a father that lived for twelve years, I mean, and he was older. Without it, you become Type one in need insulin.

But yeah, so let's talk about the Barbidavia Center first of all, because we are so blessed and lucky here in the Denver Metro to have the Barbi Davia Center started by your mom. It was because of your conditional Is type one diabetes hereditary? Is there a hereditary component?

There is a hereditary component. I don't have it in my hittree at all. So it's also really possible just out.

Of nowhere for somebody to have Type I know I'm special, so yeah, it can come out of it.

Can it can be either you know, you know of it and it's in your genes and and and that's why it's important too, I think for people to make sure they get a blood test or to get tested if you do have it in your family. The Barbara Davis Center will test you for free, oh wow, to see if you have the markers and then be able to let you know if an onset of type one is coming.

What what do you guys do at the data DAVA or they just renamed the center of the Barbaradie. They need to change, right, we need rebranding. What do you guys do over there overall because there's so many things.

There's so many things, it's fantastic. So we do patient care on the first floor. Second floor there's an infusion center where we actually able to do there's a few drugs that you can now infuse and push off the onset of type one if you have all the markers. And then the top two floors are a wet lab and a dry lab, so we.

Do sort of soup to nuts.

We do everything from care to trying to prevent it to a cure.

And that's pretty amazing that there are drugs that you can give someone to keep their pancreas going if they're headed in that direction.

Yeah, but now it's just getting the testing ryan. Some of it again is going to be a sticky a sticky answer, but some of it's insurance. It's a very expensive drug right now. We're trying really hard to get it past. We're trying very hard to get as much data as we can on it so that we can get it into mainstream.

Is that part of what you do as well, do you do you help researchers? Do you do you fund that kind of stuff? Absolutely, we have. We have two floors of researchers. Wow, so you actually have it. For some reason, I thought you did grants, But you guys actually are doing three actually have researchers.

We have over two hundred and twenty people in the building at the Barbara Davis Center. I'd say a third of them are Type one themselves. So I have a lot of passion for it and a lot of the researches is going on. We also have the largest clinical base of patients, so any devices that are going to come out in the next five years have come through our center for testing.

Oh wow, We've been able to be a.

Part of it because we have the most children, the most adults. Ninety percent of the Type ones in Colorado and surrounding areas come to the center.

Oh that's fantasticcause I got to tell you, every time we have this have you on the show, I get an email from someone that says, oh my gosh, I had no idea this was here. Just found out I had Type one diabetes. I'm going to go there because you know, for the education component, because it's scary. I mean scary, you really do when you get that diagnosis. I think when you're a child and I don't want to,

We serve literally from day one to we have one patient that's had it for seventy five years. Oh my gosh, she's amazing, and you know.

To one hundred years old.

Education is crucial and my parents wanted to start this because they wanted to care for the whole family, right, So part of it is making sure that the siblings are okay. If it's you yourself, that your partner or you know your kids are okay with it, it's we treat it as a whole family in the education and that means, you know, a lot of times Type ones are twice as likely to suffer from depression and suicidal thoughts and.

A function of the I mean, is there a physiological reason for that or is it just the stress and the and the sort of yeah, you know, mental where are you? Yeah, Like, yes, I think it's a little of both.

And then actually Type ones are four times as likely to suffer from eating disorders because there's such a focus on what you're eating and what that looks like, and and that can be at any age. That's not just for kids and not just for teenagers. So mental health issues is a big push that we do as well, because it's such a crucial part of it, and taking care of the whole person, not just your disease, but making sure your mind, body.

And soul are Okay, what are the repercussions of untreated type one diabetes? Obviously people can die. You die, Oh oh, just that's it, okay. I mean yeah, one.

Hundred years ago, they starved you till you died. Oh my, that was the treatment before insulin was discovered. Like it's kind of crazy to think, so to think when people are like, oh, it's been so long since we've had a cure, It's like we've only had insulin for one hundred years and they've known about it since Egyptian times. There's proof that it was called the sugar urine disease, and they knew to you know, sort of if there was sugar, if ants went to where you were urinated,

So if you don't want to go get tested, just peel on the ground near an ant pile and see and see what it's perfect.

But don't great now people are going to do that and I'm going to get in trouble as our doctors.

You're going to be like, what kind of you? But I don't find that fascinating because we don't think about the ancient Egyptians. I mean, they had a civilized culture for the time, but you don't think about the fact that they were figuring out the internal workings or at least knowing that something was wrong, right, and it's crazy. That's amazing, Yeah, I mean, that's just amazing. What are some of the things that people who are coming to the center for the first time. What can they expect.

They can expect a really warm and welcoming place. They can expect to find people who understand them.

They can expect to.

Be treated as a whole person, their whole family to be treated. We make sure a lot of times, like kids will come over from Children's hospital and little red wagons, you know, they'll come across after they've been diagnosed. They're welcomed, they get to meet with a therapist, they get to meet with a nurse practitioner, they get to meet with a doctor.

We do the.

Initial sort of setup, and then a few weeks later we have them come back. That's a lot of information to get in the beginning. That's a lot of We try to connect them with a network. We try to get them with social networks, and we have support groups and different things to really help to help them get through it.

So what kind of changes have we seen in terms of life expectancy and the life expectancy since you were diagnosed?

So when I was diagnosed, they were basically I was told, you know, to not have children.

I didn't have children for other reasons.

But that I couldn't have children and that I could expect to live like thirty forty years.

WHOA, And now.

We have people that are living with it for seventy five eighty. It'll be my fiftieth anniversary diversary next year, So we're doing a celebration and a metal celebration because we have over four hundred patients.

That I have had it more than fifty years.

So if the life expectancy has just doubled, it's become and the quality of life right right, I.

Mean, let's be really, you can extend someone's life, but their quality of life sucks. What you're really doing, you know, that's it and now it can be.

That's one of the bigger pushes too, is with cgms and pumps in different ways that you can take care of your body.

You can.

I mean you see there's Olympic athletes, there's race car drivers. You can do absolutely everything. And now even you're allowed to you know, before you weren't allowed to fly planes. There are you know, you're allowed to do that now like it's amazing. There's nothing that you can't do anymore.

So what are they working on? What are your researchers working on right now that they feel hopeful that the end may be near. That would be stem cells.

I mean that would be the implanting of stem cells and seeing you know what do you maybe put it in? What it can or cell shell is right, because it's you know, survives the immune system and it's you know, impervious, so you can it can come well, come and go, sorry about that, but working on how to create that as a protective implant to put it in the body.

So the delivery system is the challenge. It's the delivery.

System, yeah, because now they can know they can sit and watch and see a cell make it into They can take a beta cell, make it in or an islet cell, make it into an insulin producing cell. They can watch it turn green when that happens, they put an algae on it. They know exactly when it becomes an insulin producing cell. They can actually really manipulate the cells. It's just a matter of churning off the autoimmune system or you know, fooling it.

Right, right, And then that's the issue. I mean, I read a lot about stem cells. I remember Regenerative Therapy client that is on the show quite often, and I'm fascinated by the potential for that. Sure, but it's like you think about stem cells can be anything. How do you make sure that they are going to be what you want them to be? And to your point, an insulin producing stem cell or you know, to basically juice the pancreas. That's to make it work the way it's

And thank goodness there are people that are so brilliant that understand that. Yeah, you know when I talk to our researchers and they talk about things and they're so excited and they get it and it's just not how my brain works. But so happy that there are people that think that way.

Well, this is why we have Dana on the show today because this is Colorado Gives Day, and as we just talked a little while ago to step Denver, it's the perfect day to make a donation that could feasibly I mean we're actually talking about for real, you could make a donation that can help end type one diabetes, and then I wouldn't get to see data every year, but we'd find something to talk about. We'd find some reason to have you on for another reason. I've got

So the Daisy program is one of the programs where he must have a sibling that has Type one. Oh, also Celiac and also Chester Celiac.

And is there a connection there? There is no way.

There's a big connection with I think it's like half the Type ones have.

Celiac as well. I have four autoimmune diseases. We'll see my family. We don't get cancer, we get autoimmune disease. We have a healthy stream of Celiac's on one side, and then we've got you know, like soriatic arthritis. I mean, we got a whole gamut of of autoimmune diseases, just a carnucopia of waiting for mine to kick in. Like every time something hurts, I'm like, well here it goes, you know here what I'm ready down to path just it's my time. But that's interesting to me. So they do.

So that program then follows people for a certain amount of time to see there's two different programs.

One's Teddy, one's Daisy, and I honestly don't remember which is the difference. I'm sorry I should know that.

But one follows type ones that are already diagnosed if they get a second autoimmune, and.

One is following.

Siblings or maybe children of people that have type.

One and following it through. I think that is an amazing part of this program, because when you have a kid that has a chronic illness or a disease or a condition, the other kids kind of get left behind a little bit out of necessity. It's not bad parenting, it is out of necessity. You have to direct more energy to that child who needs that. But what a wonderful thing for you guys to say, we're going to bring you all in and we're going to make you all feel special and.

Loved well, and unfortunately we have a lot of siblings that are both Type one.

Yeah, we've been finding that more and more recently. Are we seeing a higher percentage? Are the percentages going up to the general population or are we just getting better at catching it. I think it's little bit of both. I think the percentages aren't a huge jump.

I mean, during COVID everybody's like, oh my god, there's you know, there's been a jump, and there wasn't. It was unfortunately that people were getting to the point they were in DKA and needed to be in the hospital. Right, So it's being able to catch it early enough.

So I think it's it's a little bit of both, you know.

It's I don't think it's a huge jump per se, right, you know, it just depends on the population exactly.

Dana Davis with the Children's Diabetes Foundation, I have put a link on the blog today where you can go directly to their Colorado Gives page and make a donation and maybe be a part of curing type one diabetes. Those are big words. They are big words, and we'll hopefully we'll get to clink to the curing of diabetes very very fantastic and maybe some other autoimmune disease at the same time. Absolutely, because you got to knock them out before I get mine. So there you go.