SciShow asks 'Can Rock and Roll Replace Your Insulin?' for World Diabetes Day

Happy World Diabetes Day! For today's observance, I'm sharing SciShow asking Can Rock and Roll Replace Your Insulin?

Could rock music one day replace your insulin injections? Scientists are pioneering music-controlled cells that could provide the perfect dose of insulin for type 1 or type 2 diabetes with just a bit of music. Specifically, Queen's "We Will Rock You." Yes, really.

Hosted by: Reid Reimers

The answer is yes, if you're a mouse. If it works in humans, it will really help people with needle phobias. I'm not one of them. I never had a problem with injecting insulin. It was more work to get used to sticking myself for blood glucose readings, but a good lancing device made it much easier for me. Now, sticking myself eight times a day, four for blood samples and four to inject insulin, makes me feel tougher. I tell people drawing my blood or giving me shots that I stick myself so much, what's another needle? That usually gets a chuckle.

I close with three paragraphs from World Diabetes Day points to often-ignored ailment by Neil Steinberg, which I shared at the Coffee Party USA/Citizen Connect Facebook page today.

Regular readers know I contracted Type I a year ago — through some undetermined autoimmune disease. Diabetes is not bad, as far as chronic conditions go — no surgery, no radiation, you don’t have to die early, necessarily, if you do what you’re supposed to do. In my case, that means swallow four pills a day, inject long-acting insulin every night and short-acting insulin as needed, should I decide to, say, eat pizza or sushi or some other high-carbohydrate food.

What have I learned from a year of diabetes? The biggest challenge is riding herd on prescriptions. Make friends with your pharmacist. To take insulin, you use an injector pen, which requires disposable needles. A 100-count box of 4 mm, 32 G needles costs about $54 with prescription at Walgreens [CVS wanted to charge over $200]. The pharmacist at Walgreens pointed out that I could buy a box, without prescription, for far less. You can get a box on Amazon for $10. They work fine.

A program I know stresses gratitude, and while I can’t honestly say I’m grateful to have diabetes, I can say that, compared to other ailments that have scythed through friends — cancer, heart failure, lung disease — diabetes is a walk in the park, if you make the effort manage it. I would not have picked diabetes, but diabetes picked me, and I’m rolling with it.

That fits with my experience, which I wrote about on World Diabetes Day 2023.

I'm a diabetic and...I consider it to be a central organizing fact of my life. Oddly enough, I think it has focused me and improved my mental health. I now have a real threat to concentrate my attention on and consider every day a small victory over death.

I still do and I agree with Steinberg; it could be a lot worse.

That's a wrap for today's health holiday. Stay tuned for America Recycles Day. I love holidays!