All eyes at the University’s Clinical Research Center will be focused on a teenage boy from Illinois this weekend.
On Sunday, 13-year-old Daniel Mikos will be the first person to take a recently developed oral insulin pill for the prevention of Type-1 diabetes.
The pill was created to prevent diabetes in patients who might develop the disease, while insulin injections treat the disease in patients who have already developed diabetes.
Dr. Paul Robertson, University professor of medicine and director of the research center’s diabetes study, said the oral insulin pill contains the same type of insulin used for injections.
“For a patient to be considered for this treatment,” Robertson said, “they must have a poor performance on an insulin secretion test and a blood test.”
Robertson also said that a potential patient must have an immediate family member who has diabetes.
Daniel’s mother, Gina Mikos, said that because Daniel’s sister was diagnosed with diabetes more than a year ago, she had her sons tested for signs of diabetes.
“My oldest (son) tested negative,” Mikos said, “but Daniel tested positive.”
Mikos said that she hopes taking the oral insulin pill will prevent Daniel from developing diabetes.
Mikos said her hope that Daniel’s treatment will allow him to avoid diabetes is tempered in knowing that the oral insulin pill has come too late to help her daughter.
“She’s been great about it,” Mikos said. “She doesn’t want Daniel to get (diabetes) any more than she likes having it.”
— Lynne Kozarek