Why We Need a Cure...
from the JDRF Website
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"I am 13 years old and I can't imagine having diabetes for
the rest of my life. I can't imagine going blind and never seeing
my parents' faces or flowers or my animals. I can't imagine losing
a leg and never being able to dance or walk normally again. And I
can't imagine giving myself thousands of more shots."
—Julie Polatchek, California
Every hour of every day, someone is diagnosed with juvenile (type
1) diabetes, the most severe form of a disease that annually accounts
for almost $100 billion in health care costs in the U.S. alone. Usually
striking before the age of 30, juvenile diabetes takes a harsh toll
on people. Not only will they be insulin-dependent for life, but devastating
life-limiting and life-shortening complications such as blindness,
amputation, heart disease and stroke, and kidney failure are an ever-present
threat. Insulin is not a cure for the disease—it is merely life
support.
Juvenile diabetes is destructive both to children and to childhood.
Controlling the disease requires 24/7/365 vigilance and imposes a
grueling regimen. It includes eating a carefully calculated diet,
checking blood glucose levels several times each day (by lancing a
finger) and insulin injections — as many as six per day —
or delivery of insulin through a pump just to stay alive. It means
children and families living by the clock, day and night, for the
rest of their lives—lives that turn out to average about 15
years less than normal.
You can't outgrow juvenile diabetes. As JDRF International Chairman
Mary Tyler Moore has said, "Diabetes is an all too personal time
bomb which can go off today, tomorrow, next year, or ten years from
now—a time bomb affecting millions...one which must be defused."
The only solution is a cure. That's why JDRF has a singular mission:
to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support
of research as soon as possible.
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Funds Raised at BAD Events go to support research
funded by JDRF
