We’ve all shouted from the sofa, “Why would you go down to the basement? At least take a weapon with you.” You don’t need any medical knowledge to know not to go into the basement when there’s a killer loose. “That’s not how hypoglycaemia works,” however, is a comment less often heard on film night, unless you’re a frustrated healthcare professional wondering how the film industry got diabetes so wrong. I was enjoying the re-enactment of Zimbardo’s famous prison experiment in Paul Scheuring’s film, The Experiment, until one of the prisoners fell ill. He had type 1 diabetes mellitus. Apparently, because he had not had his insulin, he was hypoglycaemic. To treat him, another prisoner correctly gave him a piece of white bread to increase his blood sugar level, but the prisoner also, incorrectly, waited for his insulin injection, which would have the opposite effect and bring his sugar back down. This film, like several others, perpetuates inaccuracies about a condition that affects one in every 430-530 people under the age of 19 in the United Kingdom.1 In the 2013 film Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters , Hansel had a deadly disease (“the sugar sickness”) caused by eating too many sweets as a child. He had to inject himself every few hours. When he missed his injection, his symptoms were similar to the …
