Zeroing in on a cure for diabetes: a medical breakthrough is freeing patients with diabetes type 1 from the endless cycle of blood testing and insulin shots, and transplanting a dramatic improvement in quality of life.

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Zeroing in on a cure for diabetes: a medical breakthrough is freeing patients with diabetes type 1 from the endless cycle of blood testing and insulin shots, and transplanting a dramatic improvement in quality of life.

In May 1955, 12-year-old Ken Bernstein received the startling diagnosis-type 1 diabetes.

"I was perfectly healthy and there was no history of diabetes in my family," remembers Ken. "I just remember being in school and experiencing terrible thirst and constant urination. When I first asked to go home, the school nurses said OK. Then on another day, they said, `No, there's nothing wrong with you.' Finally, they rushed me to the hospital because I was almost in a coma."

For 45 years, Ken lived with diabetes, enduring early diagnostic urine dip tests, the daily boiling of hypodermic needles, and subsequent injections. With insulin only discovered in 1922, only three decades before his diagnosis, treatment for the disease was in its infancy.

"I calculated I had insulin injections for 17,333 days," Bernstein says. "I was on one shot of insulin a day and a very restricted diet that eliminated all sweets and was also very low-carbohydrate--mostly meat, chi...

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