Frederick Banting’s Discovery of Insulin Is Still Saving Lives

In the 1800s, the life expectancy for a 10-year-old child with Type 1 diabetes was about one year. Now people with Type 1 diabetes can expect to live around 68 years on average. One big reason why: the discovery of the hormone insulin by a team led by Frederick Banting, an early-20th-century scientist from Canada, which revolutionized treatment for the disease. Yesterday, we celebrated Banting's 125th birthday with a Google Doodle in his honor and with World Diabetes Day.