Can’t see the audio player? Click here to listen.
One out of every 4 people with Type 1 and 2 diabetes rations insulin. Adeline Umubyeyi is among them. She’s a college grad with a professional job and health insurance who still sometimes goes to bed without dinner — because skipping a meal allows her to skip a dose of her costly insulin.
On Episode 5 of “An Arm and a Leg,” meet Umubyeyi and take a 98-year journey with host Dan Weissmann as he traces insulin’s origins. It begins with a couple of scrappy researchers, toiling in a sweltering attic, who left a trail of dead dogs in their wake. And the trip includes a visit to an unconventional lab space in present-day Oakland, Calif., where amateur researchers are working on a 21st-century recipe for affordable insulin.
Season 2 is a co-production of Kaiser Health News and Public Road Productions.
To keep in touch with “An Arm and a Leg,” subscribe to the newsletter. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Twitter. And if you’ve got stories to tell about the health care system, the producers would love to hear from you.
To hear all Kaiser Health News podcasts, click here.
And subscribe to “An Arm and a Leg” on iTunes, Pocket Casts, Google Play or Spotify.