The World’s Longest-Lived Insulin-Dependent Diabetic

Last week marked the death of a person most of us have never heard of: a Canadian woman named Sheila Thorn.  While she may not have been a household name, Ms. Thorn will be appreciated by anyone living with Type 1: she was one of the very first people to receive artificial insulin — from none other than Frederick Banting himself. According to Diabetes UK, that made her likely to be the world’s longest-lived insulin-dependent diabetic (in the sense that she was an insulin-dependent diabetic who actually received insulin!). 

It’s sad that she’s gone — I would have loved to have interviewed her about her experience watching technology change over her lifetime (by the time she died, she was on a pump). But if nothing else, reading about her life inspired me to reflect on just how much has changed over the past 90 years since insulin was discovered — and just how recent that discovery was. Caught up in the daily frustrations of glucose management, I often lose sight of the fact that if I’d had this disease just a hundred years ago, I wouldn’t have survived. Let’s hope that the progress of the next hundred years is just as dramatic. 

Here’s a brief obituary of Ms. Thorn, from the BBC.

Catherine Price

Catherine Price (www.catherine-price.com) was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. She has written for publications including The Best American Science Catherine Price is a professional journalist who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. Her work has been featured in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Health Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and Outside, among others. A graduate of Yale and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism

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Catherine Price

Catherine Price was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. She has written for publications including The Best American Science Catherine Price is a professional journalist who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was 22 years old. Her work has been featured in publications including The Best American Science Writing, The New York Times, Popular Science, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Post Magazine, Salon, Slate, Men’s Journal, Health Magazine, The Oprah Magazine, and Outside, among others. A graduate of Yale and UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism