For two weeks, Kelli Oliver has appointments at Yale-New Haven Hospital to get a drug that's supposed to help diabetes patients. But she doesn't have diabetes. Her brother does.
“There are 258 million people worldwide in 2010 that were living with diabetes. I don't know how you can hear that statistic and be offered to be a part of this kind of trial and making history and walk away from it,” said Oliver.
The Yale School of Medicine clinical study is investigating if a treatment used to prevent insulin loss in Type 1 diabetes patients will be able to prevent the disease entirely. Doctors are looking for relatives of diabetes patients who are at high risk for the disease.
“For an individual who is of very high risk, who has a 75-percent chance of developing diabetes over the next six years or so, it would seem to be an obvious thing to participate if you could,” said Dr. Kevan Herold, the organizer of the study.
These clinical studies cover a wide array of diseases. It's not disease we know about like diabetes, some cover rare genetic diseases.
David Miller has Gaucher's Disease, a genetic disorder that leads to a build-up of fat in the cells.
“It leads to enlarged liver, spleen, low blood counts, devastating bone disease,” said Dr. Pram Mistry, who is running a study on Gaucher’s.
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There is a treatment for Gaucher's that involves an infusion every two weeks. This study is looking into a pill form of treatment.
“I'm hoping that it works because there are so many people who have been treated with the infusion for so much longer than I have that are really desperate for this kind of treatment,” Miller said.
For more information on how to participate in the clinical studies, click here.
