Documentary features game-changing diabetes breakthrough that could help thousands

Oklahoma premiere at Trail Dance Film Festival

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Jan 12, 2016, 08:00 ET

Journey to a Miracle: Freedom from Insulin - The story of a breathtaking cure for diabetes and the lives that were changed forever. The award-winning documentary will have its Oklahoma premiere at Trail Dance Film Festival on Friday, January 29. The movie will begin airing on public television stations nationwide in April.

CHICAGO, Jan. 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Thousands of Americans with diabetes are taking insulin shots and don't need to. What they and their physicians need to know is - they have the wrong diagnosis and are on the wrong treatment. Until recently, doctors only knew to diagnose patients with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Science has now proven that there are different, genetic forms that affect up to 500,000 Americans – and most have been misdiagnosed. These newly understood types are called monogenic diabetes and remarkably the best treatment is a common pill, not insulin.

The award-winning documentary Journey to a Miracle: Freedom from Insulin is bringing the story of this game-changing medical breakthrough to audiences nationwide. The heartwarming film weaves together life-changing stories of brilliant scientists with grateful families who hoped and prayed for a diabetes cure, but never in their wildest dreams imagined it would come in the form of a simple pill.

Journey to a Miracle will have its Oklahoma premiere at Trail Dance Film Festival before airing on public television later this year. The screening is Friday, Jan. 29, 4:30 PM, Palace Theatre, Duncan. Trailer

Journey to a Miracle executive producers Laurie and Michael Jaffe, Chicago, made the documentary after their daughter Lilly, who was diagnosed with diabetes at one month old, was able to switch her treatment from insulin shots to pills when she was six.

"It was incredible to watch our daughter disconnect her insulin pump forever and surreal when she handed me her lifeline to store in a closet. We were grateful that she was free from shots, but wondered 'why us, why now?' We concluded that we had to tell the story and bring hope to others who could also be helped," says Laurie Jaffe.

"This documentary is a giant step forward in raising awareness for monogenic diabetes. It will help reach the public in a way that lectures and published studies in medical journals never could," says Dr. Louis Philipson, Lilly's doctor and director of the University of Chicago Kovler Diabetes Center.

Journey to a Miracle made its television debut last year on Chicago public television WTTW-11. It will be available to public television stations nationwide in April. (Check local listings.) TMK Productions produced the film.

Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160111/320851

SOURCE Journey to a Miracle