Thursday, November 13, 2014
St Joseph's Health Care London
Patients Tackle Diabetes as Research Participants
Discovering she had type 1 diabetes at age 19, Tammy Willert initially found the diagnosis daunting and overwhelming. She quickly learned that “I had a great responsibility to take care of myself, to do all I could to manage my condition.”
Two years after her diagnosis, Willert signed up for a diabetes clinical trial and, 30 years later, is still a participant. Now 54, Willert is among hundreds of patients in the London region devoted to helping science change the course of care for diabetes patients in Canada and around the world – a commitment to which she credits her own good health.
“I truly feel being part of research has saved my life. I have been on the cutting edge of care that helps you to be as healthy as you can be. I feel so fortunate to be involved. Every follow up visit gives me a new piece of information that allows me to do better. For those being diagnosed today, they will have the benefit of what we have discovered and hopefully won’t have the same intensity of complications associated with this terrible disease.”
The evolution of diabetes care and education over the years has been far-reaching “and we simply could not have achieved what we have without the dedication and commitment of patients and their families,” says Dr. Irene Hramiak, Chair/Chief of the Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism of St. Joseph’s Health Care London and a scientist at Lawson Health Research Institute. “So many of our patients have lived the dramatic changes in care and technology, have persevered, given of themselves to science and as a result have contributed to new standards that have revolutionized treatment.”
At St. Joseph’s Hospital, more than 15 scientists and endocrinologists are conducting diabetes research and at any given time about 30 studies are in progress involving as many as 350 patients.
Willert was part of the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT), a major clinical study in Canada and the U.S. that ran from 1983 to 1993, and has since been part of a follow-up study called Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC). She has also taken part in many offshoot studies along the way, so many she has lost count.
Through the DCCT trial researchers have learned that 75 per cent of eye disease can be prevented in type 1 diabetes by good blood sugar control, says Dr. Hramiak.
At age 63, Joyce Neill is proof it’s never too late to jump into research. Having lived well with diabetes for 56 years, the grandmother of triplet girls is hoping her experience with the disease, and how she has managed it, will inform care for the next generation. She recently joined the LONGTIME study examining the impact of diabetes on the large and small blood vessels in patients who have had type 1 diabetes for 50 years or more.
“For much of my life I kept my diabetes a secret because job and other opportunities in life would not have been open to me,” says Neill who was diagnosed at age five in Scotland where there was so little understanding her parents were advised to put her in an institution because her life would be so limited.
“Somewhere along the line, I decided that this disease won’t define me, that it was a gift I could learn from,” says Neill. “I’ve done everything possible to look after myself and when I hit 60, I decided I had a story to tell that could help others.”
Media Contact:
Dahlia Reich
Communication & Public Affairs
St. Joseph’s Health Care London
519-646-6100 ext 65294, pager 10117
dahlia.reich@sjhc.london.on.ca
Sonya Gilpin
Communications & Public Relations
Lawson Health Research Institute
519-685-8500 ext 75852, 519-854-7164
sonya.gilpin@lawsonresearch.com
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