Faced with death, most people will do almost anything to stay alive. That is why many millions around the world either stick needles in themselves at frequent intervals to inject a hormone called insulin, or wear a device called an insulin pump that does the same thing automatically through a catheter that penetrates their skin. A body's failure to make insulin, which regulates how cells burn glucose, their primary fuel, causes the symptoms doctors call type-i diabetes. Until the discovery of insulin, in the 1920s, this form of diabetes was a death sentence.
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