Virtually everyone has heard of diabetes and insulin, but very few have any clue what diabetes really is or what role insulin plays. So to start with, I thought I would offer this brief description provided by WebMD:

“Diabetes is a number of diseases that involve problems with the hormone insulin. Normally, the pancreas (an organ behind the stomach) releases insulin to help your body store and use the sugar and fat from the food you eat. Diabetes occurs when one of the following occurs:”

• When the pancreas does not produce any insulin”
• When the pancreas produces very little insulin”
• When the body does not respond appropriately to insulin, a condition called ‘insulin resistance’”

“Diabetes is a lifelong disease. Approximately 18.2 million Americans have the disease and almost one third (or approximately 5.2 million) are unaware that they have it. An additional 41 million people have pre-diabetes. As yet, there is no cure. People with diabetes need to manage their disease to stay healthy.”

“The Role of Insulin in Diabetes”

“To understand why insulin is important in diabetes, it helps to know more about how the body uses food for energy. Your body is made up of millions of cells. To make energy, these cells need food in a very simple form. When you eat or drink, much of your food is broken down into a simple sugar called ‘glucose.’ Then, glucose is transported through the bloodstream to the cells of your body where it can be used to provide some of the energy your body needs for daily activities.”

“The amount of glucose in your bloodstream is tightly regulated by the hormone insulin. Insulin is always being released in small amounts by the pancreas. When the amount of glucose in your blood rises to a certain level, the pancreas will release more insulin to push more glucose into the cells. This causes the glucose levels in your blood (blood glucose levels) to drop.”

“To keep your blood glucose levels from getting too low (hypoglycemia or low blood sugar), your body signals you to eat and releases some glucose from storage kept in the liver.”

‘People with diabetes either don’t make insulin or their body’s cells are resistant to insulin, leading to high levels of sugar circulating in the blood, called simply high blood sugar. By definition, diabetes is having a blood glucose level of 126 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) or more after an overnight fast (not eating anything).”

Type 1 diabetes is when the pancreas no longer produces any insulin, forcing the person to inject doses of insulin on a regular basis. A young woman, Beth, who I worked with was a type 1 diabetic and her condition was so severe, that she ended up having to use an insulin pump. The pump mechanism monitored her blood sugar level and when necessary, it would automatically inject the insulin into her system, but she had to regularly fill the insulin pump with the insulin.

Without insulin, Beth and many like her would die within days.

We’ve already reported that the price of insulin has increased to the point that some diabetics have been forced to ration their supply of insulin and in some cases, it has resulted in their death. Insulin is just as important to their living as breathing is. The loss of either has very deadly consequences.

Knowing that, the latest news should be extremely frightening to Beth and many other diabetics who rely on insulin just to live:

“As the number of people living with diabetes continues to rise, the access to insulin needed to meet growing demand will fall short, a new study predicts.”

“By 2030, 79 million adults with type 2 diabetes are expected to need insulin to manage their condition and if current levels of access remain, only half of them will be able to be able to get an adequate supply, according to a modeling study published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology.”

“Access to the drug must be significantly improved, the researchers warn, particularly in the African, Asian and Oceania regions, which will be most affected.”

“‘These estimates suggest that current levels of insulin access are highly inadequate compared to projected need, particularly in Africa and Asia, and more efforts should be devoted to overcoming this looming health challenge,’ said Dr. Sanjay Basu, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University in the U.S., who led the research.”

The gist of the study says that with the increase need for insulin, there will be a significant shortage of insulin by the year 2030, which is only 12 years away. Both type 1 and type 2 diabetics will be faced with finding out there isn’t enough insulin to keep them alive.

If something isn’t done now to resolve the problem, many will die. Who will be responsible for making the decision on who gets the life-saving insulin and who dies?