State-Journal.com - This cure's for her

Photo By Kelly MackeyLauren Kiser, 10, holds up a blood sugar meter. Lauren was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes at age 6, and she hopes researchers will find a cure for the disease during her lifetime.

Photo By SubmittalAn eternal fundraiser, Lauren Kiser, middle, and her best friend, Emma Pennington, collect money for the Humane Society and L.I.F.E. House for Animals in 2008.

Lauren Kiser can’t stay away from a good cause.

Wearing an “I ♥ Green” T-shirt, the exceptional 10-year-old lists a few of her passions: “less trash, helping people get into homes and a lot less depression.”

But there’s one cause that affects Lauren directly – finding a cure for juvenile diabetes, which she was diagnosed with at age 6.

When Lauren read an article last week about a 15-year-old girl raising $100 in every ZIP code to help find a cure for diabetes, she scrambled to take care of 40601.

“I got butterflies in my stomach I was so excited,” Lauren said.

She’d already raised the $100 by going door-to-door in her Two Creeks neighborhood before she went to the Web site and bought Frankfort’s portion for Zip the Cure.

A cure is so important, Lauren says, because she doesn’t want anyone else to have to deal with the daily injections and needle pricks.

She’s no longer scared of the needles, but “sometimes my fingers get sore from all the pricking,” she says.

Diabetes is a disorder in which the body has trouble regulating its blood sugar levels – it’s chronic and affects people of all ages. Juvenile diabetes is a disorder of the immune system in which the body doesn’t produce insulin, the hormone needed to regulate blood sugar levels.

To keep her levels safe, Lauren injects herself with insulin several times daily. She pricks her fingers for blood six or more times a day and carefully watches what she eats.

Tuesday on the way home from school, she asked her dad, Brian, if they could stop for ice cream, but a prick to the finger meant no.

“Sometimes she gets mad at diabetes when it keeps her from doing the things she wants to do,” Brian said.

But it hasn’t stopped his daughter from being active, says her proud father. She’s set three state swimming records and won Little Miss Franklin County 2008.

Worrying about her blood sugar takes an emotional toll too.

“Sometimes I get pains in my chest and stomach because I get nervous,” Lauren said.

Tuesday, however, she was all smiles about finding a cure.

Zip the Cure was started by Monica Oxenreiter, a 15-year-old from Pennsylvania who – like Lauren – deals with diabetes daily.

With 42,088 ZIP codes in the U.S., the dollar goal is more than $4.2 million, and all the proceeds go to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Presently, the causes of juvenile diabetes are unknown.

Monica, who mans the Web site and answers e-mails herself, says 131 ZIP codes have been sold in the U.S. Only seven of the 956 ZIP codes in Kentucky have been purchased.

“I think that the past couple of weeks, it has gained popularity, and the Web site has gotten a lot more traffic,” Monica said Tuesday.

She’s thankful for the teens and children who are spreading the word.

“This is the best way I could think of to get everyone involved,” Monica said.

Brian said Lauren’s enthusiasm is infectious.

“She is an amazing girl and seems to always succeed at whatever she sets her mind to no matter her day-to-day hurdles,” he said.

The Kiser family encourages everyone to go to the Web site – zipthecure.com – and purchase a ZIP code.

But you can’t have 40601 – that’s Lauren’s.

ZIP codes already sponsored in Kentucky are:

40508

41216

40503

40022

40601

40502

41339

7.	Posted by frankgoinsiii February 4, 2010
	Daniel - Please research Juvenile diabetes (Type I). Type I has nothing to do with weight or obesity. It is more attributed to a virus which can cause the body to attack itself and the family history attributes of an individual. Please do not confuse the two types. See below from the ADA What leads to diabetes? Type 1 and type 2 diabetes have different causes. Yet two factors are important in both. First, you must inherit a predisposition to the disease. Second, something in your environment must trigger diabetes. Genes alone are not enough. One proof of this is identical twins. Identical twins have identical genes. Yet when one twin has type 1 diabetes, the other gets the disease at most only half the time. When one twin has type 2 diabetes, the other's risk is at most 3 in 4. Type 1 diabetes In most cases of type 1 diabetes, people need to inherit risk factors from both parents. We think these factors must be more common in whites because whites have the highest rate of type 1 diabetes. Because most people who are at risk do not get diabetes, researchers want to find out what the environmental triggers are. One trigger might be related to cold weather. Type 1 diabetes develops more often in winter than summer and is more common in places with cold climates. Another trigger might be viruses. Perhaps a virus that has only mild effects on most people triggers type 1 diabetes in others. Early diet may also play a role. Type 1 diabetes is less common in people who were breastfed and in those who first ate solid foods at later ages. In many people, the development of type 1 diabetes seems to take many years. In experiments that followed relatives of people with type 1 diabetes, researchers found that most of those who later got diabetes had certain autoantibodies in their blood for years before. (Antibodies are proteins that destroy bacteria or viruses. Autoantibodies are antibodies 'gone bad,' which attack the body's own tissues.) Type 2 diabetes Type 2 diabetes has a stronger genetic basis than type 1, yet it also depends more on environmental factors. Sound confusing? What happens is that a family history of type 2 diabetes is one of the strongest risk factors for getting the disease but it only seems to matter in people living a Western lifestyle. Americans and Europeans eat too much fat and too little carbohydrate and fiber, and they get too little exercise. Type 2 diabetes is common in people with these habits. The ethnic groups in the United States with the highest risk are African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Pima Indians. In contrast, people who live in areas that have not become Westernized tend not to get type 2 diabetes, no matter how high their genetic risk. Obesity is a strong risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Obesity is most risky for young people and for people who have been obese for a long time. Gestational diabetes is more of a puzzle. Women who get diabetes while they are pregnant are more likely to have a family history of diabetes, especially on their mothers' side. But as in other forms of diabetes, nongenetic factors play a role. Older mothers and overweight women are more likely to get gestational diabetes.