The Diabetes Epidemic: Controlling, Curing, and Prevention

The University of Florida has an ambitious goal:: to harness the power of its faculty, staff, students, and alumni to solve some of society’s most pressing problems and to become a resource for the state of Florida, the nation, and the world.   The Diabetes Epidemic explores the complicated landscape of diabetes research and offers a glimpse of the extraordinarily difficult, and sometimes serendipitous, ways in which breakthroughs occur. At the University of Florida Diabetes Institute more than 100 faculty members are working on education, research, prevention, and treatment. Their fields are diverse—genetics, endocrinology, epidemiology, patient and physician education, health outcomes and policy, behavioral science, and rural medicine—but their goal is the same. Jump into the trenches with the doctors, scientists, and research nurses at the Diabetes Institute to learn about the challenges associated with developing treatments. Meet a brother who is helping his sister by participating in one of the largest studies ever undertaken of people at risk for Type 1 diabetes. Visit the largest open-access repository of diabetic pancreases in the world, where the most studied is that of a 12-year-old boy who had Type 1 diabetes for only a year. Spend time with one of the foremost diabetes researchers as he decides which pancreases to study, deploys experimental projects to answer new questions, and struggles to fund additional investigations. Discover why Type 2 diabetes is affecting more and more people and how some of them control it, and learn about a few of the most promising Type 2 treatments currently under study. While a cure has not yet been found, the researchers at UF’s Diabetes Institute are working to improve the lives of the estimated 415 million people currently suffering from the disease worldwide.   The stories chronicled in GATORBYTES span all colleges and units across the UF campus. They detail the far-reaching impact of UF’s research, technologies, and innovations—and the UF faculty members dedicated to them. Gatorbytes describe how UF is continuing to build on its strengths and extend the reach of its efforts so that it can help even more people in even more places.