CHICAGO—For nearly a century, insulin has been a life-saving diabetes treatment. Now scientists are testing a tantalizing question: What if pills containing the same medicine patients inject every day could also prevent the disease?
Thirteen-year-old Hayden Murphy of Plainfield, Illinois, is helping researchers determine if the strategy works for Type 1 diabetes, the kind that is usually diagnosed in childhood. If it does, he might be able to avoid the lifetime burdens facing his 5-year-old brother, Weston.
They includes countless finger pricks and blood sugar checks, and avoiding playing too hard or eating too little, which both can cause dangerous blood sugar fluctuations.
