Ninety years ago the first successful treatment with insulin of a person with diabetes signalled a major medical advance and lifted a death sentence from millions. To mark the anniversary, ANDY RUTHERFORD spoke to two Gwent people with diabetes about life with daily injections of the hormone.

DAILY across Wales almost 60,000 people rely on insulin to help keep them alive.

Ultra-tiny needles, insulin pens, genetically modified insulin that mimics the real thing, and insulin pumps are among the technology helping people with diabetes to keep themselves healthy.

Ninety years ago this month a 14-year-old Canadian boy became the first person to be successfully treated with the hormone, which controls blood sugar levels.

Dr Frederick Banting’s discovery of the beneficial effects of insulin hormone extract changed the lives of millions of people.

Among them is Ronald Farr, 81, from Cwm, who was diagnosed with Type One diabetes in 1961. By then the advent of the NHS had made insulin treatment more widely available.

He recalls injections “with a big hypodermic needle”, but now uses an insulin pen and a hypodermic to keep his diabetes under control.

He said: “When I was first diagnosed my doctor said “don’t treat it as an illness, but a condition” and it doesn’t stop you doing anything.

“I’ve known people who have died of a diabetic coma, people who have lost limbs, but I’ve been very fortunate, and my wife, Marian, has looked after me.”

Michelle Jarrett, 29, from Newport, was diagnosed with Type One diabetes at three years old.

She said: “It was injections with hypodermic needles, out of a bottle, one in the morning, one in the evening.

“Things have changed for the better now, though. I used to have to sit down and get all the equipment out and I could draw a crowd.

But now injecting yourself is a lot more discreet.”

Mrs Jarrett now uses insulin pens to inject herself, a far cry from the days of glass syringes and reusable needles.

Pens and pumps have increased the safety and comfort of self-administering insulin, and since the 1980s insulin has been synthetically manufactured using bacteria.

But Diabetes UK Cymru warned the growing number of people with diabetes is still a challenge, and it is estimated that 66,000 people remain undiagnosed.