What would it take to create insulin in the post-apocalypse?
In post-apocalypse fiction, diabetics, if they are ever even mentioned, are typically portrayed as utterly, irrevocably screwed. In fact there was a pretty cynical example in Dies The Fire (a book about technology magically ceasing to function forever) where there was a Mormon couple who both had diabetes because their entire narrative purpose was to stockpile a lot of resources the heroes could use (Mormon) and then die so the heroes could use them (diabetic).
But suppose the hero, or at least one of the main characters, of a post-apocalyptic story was diabetic, and one of the main driving motivations in the story was to keep this guy alive. One thing I've been really interested in figuring out is if it can be done.
I've done some research about this due to an interest in having a diabetic character in my story that will eventually become post-apocalypse, and what I learned was that there's a starvation diet you can use to keep a diabetic person alive (if just barely) for about a year or two with no insulin, and I also learned that there's a complicated chemical process you can use to turn chopped livestock pancreases into homemade insulin. But none of the resources I could find gave any hint at what kind of scale or effort it would take to keep this going, how much insulin you got out of a single pig or cow, how much land it would take to keep a sustainable livestock population, whether or not the chemicals and alcohol were possible to obtain more of once stockpiles and scavenging run out, or what equipment it required to operate.
Suppose some determined type-1 diabetic doomsday prepper set out to design and build a completely off-the grid compound that could, completely without assistance from the power grid, water facilities, or supply networks of civilization after it's been built, keep a single diabetic alive, and feed, water and house him/her and as many people as it would take to maintain such a compound. What, bare minimum, would such a compound need to have, how big would it be, and how many people would it take to run it?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/130654. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1 answer
Many Type II diabetics use insulin and others may use different medications that affect insulin production and use but in a slower way. Diet works in most people here. Eat very lowcarb. It's not "starvation."
Type I diabetics don't produce insulin and require it to metabolize their food. A very lowcarb diet (again, not starvation) can greatly reduce the need for insulin so any existing stockpile or new supply will last much much longer.
I'm going to assume your question is about Type I (though your question in its current form does not specify).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9416027 (abstract)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/014572179702300603 (first page of full text)
Fat doesn't change blood glucose levels. Protein doesn't either, but protein in excess of need will convert in part to glucose in the body. This article suggests that, in the presence of adequate insulin (regardless of if it is naturally produced or supplemented from the outside), protein intake will not affect blood glucose. It's unclear what the effects of protein are in people who do not have any insulin (I can't read the full article).
While it's true that diabetics before the invention of insulin supplementation found it hard to maintain themselves by diet alone, a lot of that was because it took a long time for diagnosis and to realize the importance of diet and the details of how to implement it. In the case of someone who is already diagnosed and who has enough insulin on hand for a transition, that may make it possible.
Now, people living in a world where food resources are scarce, may not have the luxury of choosing their diet. Carb-heavy foods like grains and legumes are the easiest to store.
In this article: http://www.jbc.org/content/106/1/305.full.pdf
The authors found that fetal cows yielded around 30 IU of insulin per gram of pancreas (I am not sure of the weight of the pancreas per animal).
It's a myth that the only source is pigs. That's just what happens to be used commercially. One article says that fish pancreas yields more insulin, but of course extraction would be difficult.
I am not sure how much of the full process you'd need to use to get the insulin. Mostly it is alcohol and acetic acid, both of which are easy enough to make from food stuff, if those versions will work. It's also possible you simply need to eat the fresh pancreas.
Dried pancreas has less insulin (though I didn't come across numbers) but it can also be stockpiled. Raid a health food store's supplement department.
So my guess is a compound with enough space, water, and pasture for a herd of cattle and some other animals, a garden area to grow healthy low-starch vegetables, and enough people to maintain it, is what you need. I'd say you want something large enough that you're not dependent on a couple of animals. You need a herd so they're self-sustaining. Use milk, eggs, and meat as the mainstays of the diet, along with leafy greens and other lowcarb veggies. Farm some grains and legumes to supplement the animals' diets in winter (in cold areas) or summer (in Mediterranean climate areas) and to feed the non-diabetic humans.
So...maybe 20+ cows in 40 acres of pasture (using rotation to grow extra hay), 5 acres to grow grains and vegetables for 25 people, add on an acre or 3 to feed poultry, a milk cow or two, maybe a fish pond. And another acre to house your people and supplies. These numbers are approximate because this is your research, not mine.
Sources:
USDA: 11 beef cows per 20 acres.
Quora: "One acre of wheat, producing 50 bushels in a year (assuming only 1 crop season), could sustain about 2,250 people for a day (eating only bread), or 6.2 people for a year."
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