• Health & Wellness

    A Line in the Sand – Mayo Clinic’s Role in Early Insulin Research

'Line in the sand' graphic for insulin bottle

A Line in the Sand - by Bob Nellis

Early in the 20th century, a desperate group of patients began appearing at Mayo Clinic in the hope that the specialists there could keep them alive. Mostly children and younger adults, they had been afflicted with a condition that only years before would have been a death sentence — type I diabetes.

Doctors at Mayo, led by endocrinologist and researcher Russell Wilder, M.D., and a handful of other centers across the country had found a drastic, but feasible method of saving many of them from this deadly disease. Dr. Wilder and his colleague, Walter Boothby, M.D., had formulated a special ketogenic diet.

Read the rest of the story on Advancing the Science.

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