History Of Insulin
Rosie Cotter explores the history of this important protein and its role in diabetes In 1922, a 14-year-old boy named Leonard Thompson lay in Toronto General Hospital dying from diabetes. He weighed less than 30 kg and was at risk of slipping into a diabetic coma. To avoid this, Leonard’s father allowed him to be injected with a new pancreatic extract, now known as insulin. At the time, people with diabetes tried to control their condition through a strict diet, but they usually died within a year of diagnosis. Remarkably, after the injection, Leonard regained his strength and appetite and went on to live for several more years. News of insulin and Leonard’s recovery spread around the world and brought notoriety to Dr Frederick Banting and student George Best at the University of Toronto. With the support of Professor John Macleod and biochemist Bertram Collip, Banting and Best had successfully extracted insulin from an animal pancreas and purified it so that it could be administered to humans. Insulin is a hormone that regulates glucose levels in the blood. When we eat, our glucose levels rise and insulin is released into the bloodstream. Insulin works by regulating glucose transport proteins in cells so they can take up the glucose and use it as an energy source or convert it to glycogen for storage. Type 1 diabetes develops when the insulin-producing beta cells of the islets of Langerhans found in the pancreas have been destroyed and the body is unable to produce insulin. Type 2 diabetes develops when the body can still make some insulin, but it is produced in insufficient amounts or in a form that does not work properly. Discovery and application Between 1920 and 1921, Banting and Best had been removing dogs’ pancreases to make them diabetic. Building on the w Continue reading >>
Insulin Discovery
Diabetes mellitus has been known to physicians since ancient times. Early Indian literature in the 6th century BCE and in ancient Egyptian papyrus references to this condition of high blood sugar has been found. Greek physician Areteus of the Imperial Roman province of Cappadocia, in now Turkey, first described the classic case of diabetes mellitus. It was Persian physician known to the West as Avicenna who noted that diabetics were two distinct groups of individuals - thin, younger, or more obese, older persons. Role of the pancreas It was in 1869 Paul Langerhans, a medical student in Berlin found clumps of cells in the pancreas. These were later called ''Islets of Langerhans''. Edouard Laguesse later suggested that they might produce secretions that play a regulatory role in digestion. The term ''insulin'' origins from ''Insel'', the German word for islet or small island. In 1889, German physiologist Oscar Minkowski and his colleague Professor Von Mering at the University of Strassburg investigated the role of the pancreas and to further investigate the role of the pancreas they performed a pancreatectomy on a dog. They found that the dog passed copious amounts of urine. The urine was found to be loaded with sugar and the dog was diabetic. The researchers found that the pancreas delivers digestive enzymes by a duct into the gastrointestinal tract and also contains clumps of cells known as Islets of Langerhans. Their function is to produce insulin and deliver it directly into the blood stream. The next step in the discovery of insulin was by Dr Frederick Allen, an American physician in the early part of the 20th century. Allen performed a 90% pancreatectomy in which case the dog became diabetic but did not die immediately and was a much more realistic model of insulin Continue reading >>
The Discovery Of Insulin: A Medical Marvel For The Sugar Sickness
Eli Lilly and Company News of this miracle drug spread like wildfire, and diabetics rushed to be treated, clinging to hopes of relief. Insulin continued to become purified, and long lasting types were created to reduce the number of daily injections. Biosynthetic Insulin, introduced in 1983, eliminates the need for animal pancreases (Yuwiler 69-70). Synthesized insulin eliminates potential allergic reactions. Most insulins today are chemically identical to natural human insulin (Davidson). Though insulin is the most common option, new treatments include drugs that stimulate beta cells in the pancreas to release more insulin, decrease glucose production in the liver, or make muscles more responsive to insulin (Davidson). However, none of these advancements would be possible without insulin. Continue reading >>
Who Really Discovered Insulin?
For people with diabetes mellitus, the year 1921 is a meaningful one. That was the year Canadian physician Frederick Banting and medical student Charles H. Best discovered the hormone insulin in pancreatic extracts of dogs. On July 30, 1921, they injected the hormone into a diabetic dog and found that it effectively lowered the dog’s blood glucose levels to normal. By the end of that year, with the help of Canadian chemist James B. Collip and Scottish physiologist J.J.R. Macleod, Banting and Best purified insulin, and the next year it was used to successfully treat a boy suffering from severe diabetes. The researchers were celebrated and honored for their breakthrough. Banting and MacLeod even shared the 1923 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for their work. Indeed, they were the “discoverers” of insulin. But the story of the discovery of insulin actually begins much earlier than 1921. According to Britannica’s pharmaceutical industry article: In 1869 Paul Langerhans, a medical student in Germany, was studying the histology of the pancreas. He noted that this organ has two distinct types of cells—acinar cells, now known to secrete digestive enzymes, and islet cells (now called islets of Langerhans). The function of islet cells was suggested in 1889 when German physiologist and pathologist Oskar Minkowski and German physician Joseph von Mering showed that removing the pancreas from a dog caused the animal to exhibit a disorder quite similar to human diabetes mellitus (elevated blood glucose and metabolic changes). After this discovery, a number of scientists in various parts of the world attempted to extract the active substance from the pancreas so that it could be used to treat diabetes. One of those scientists was Romanian physiologist Nicolas C. Paule Continue reading >>
Insulin Injection Aids Diabetic Patient
At Toronto General Hospital, 14-year-old Canadian Leonard Thompson becomes the first person to receive an insulin injection as treatment for diabetes. Diabetes has been recognized as a distinct medical condition for more than 3,000 years, but its exact cause was a mystery until the 20th century. By the early 1920s, many researchers strongly suspected that diabetes was caused by a malfunction in the digestive system related to the pancreas gland, a small organ that sits on top of the liver. At that time, the only way to treat the fatal disease was through a diet low in carbohydrates and sugar and high in fat and protein. Instead of dying shortly after diagnosis, this diet allowed diabetics to live–for about a year. A breakthrough came at the University of Toronto in the summer of 1921, when Canadians Frederick Banting and Charles Best successfully isolated insulin from canine test subjects, produced diabetic symptoms in the animals, and then began a program of insulin injections that returned the dogs to normalcy. On November 14, the discovery was announced to the world. Two months later, with the support of J.J.R. MacLeod of the University of Toronto, the two scientists began preparations for an insulin treatment of a human subject. Enlisting the aid of biochemist J.B. Collip, they were able to extract a reasonably pure formula of insulin from the pancreas of cattle from slaughterhouses and used it to treat Leonard Thompson. The diabetic teenager improved dramatically, and the University of Toronto immediately gave pharmaceutical companies license to produce insulin, free of royalties. By 1923, insulin had become widely available, saving countless lives around the world, and Banting and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Continue reading >>
- Ketogenic Diet Aids Weight loss, Diabetes, Epilepsy and Multiple Sclerosis: Keto Starves Cancer
- This Ancient Medicine Cures HIV, AIDS, Diabetes, Cancer, Arthritis & Many More…
- Man Found “Cures For All Diseases” HIV, AIDS, Diabetes, Cancer, Stroke, STDs, Arthritis & More – and Has The Supreme Court Ruling To Prove It
History Of Diabetes
Frederick Banting (right) joined by Charles Best in office, 1924 Diabetes is one of the first diseases described[1] with an Egyptian manuscript from c. 1500 BCE mentioning “too great emptying of the urine.”[2] The first described cases are believed to be of type 1 diabetes.[2] Indian physicians around the same time identified the disease and classified it as madhumeha or honey urine noting that the urine would attract ants.[2] The term "diabetes" or "to pass through" was first used in 250 BC by the Greek Apollonius of Memphis.[2] Type 1 and type 2 diabetes were identified as separate conditions for the first time by the Indian physicians Sushruta and Charaka in 400-500 CE with type 1 associated with youth and type 2 with obesity.[2] The term "mellitus" or "from honey" was added by Thomas Willis in the late 1600s to separate the condition from diabetes insipidus which is also associated with frequent urination.[2] Further history[edit] Plaque in Strasbourg commemorating the 1889 discovery by Minkowski and Von Mering The first complete clinical description of diabetes was given by the Ancient Greek physician Aretaeus of Cappadocia (fl. 1st century CE), who also noted the excessive amount of urine which passed through the kidneys.”[3] Diabetes mellitus appears to have been a death sentence in the ancient era. Hippocrates makes no mention of it, which may indicate that he felt the disease was incurable. Aretaeus did attempt to treat it but could not give a good prognosis; he commented that "life (with diabetes) is short, disgusting and painful."[4] The disease must have been rare during the time of the Roman empire with Galen commenting that he had only seen two cases during his career.[2] In medieval Persia, Avicenna (980–1037) provided a detailed account on diabet Continue reading >>
First Use Of Insulin In Treatment Of Diabetes On This Day In 1922
On 11 January 1922 insulin was first used in the treatment of diabetes. Insulin was discovered by Sir Frederick G Banting (pictured), Charles H Best and JJR Macleod at the University of Toronto in 1921 and it was subsequently purified by James B Collip. Before 1921, it was exceptional for people with Type 1 diabetes to live more than a year or two. One of the twentieth century’s greatest medical discoveries, it remains the only effective treatment for people with Type 1 diabetes today. Find out more about insulin in the treatment of diabetes. First successful use On 11 January 1922, Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old boy with diabetes, who lay dying at the Toronto General Hospital, was given the first injection of insulin. However, the extract was so impure that Thompson suffered a severe allergic reaction, and further injections were cancelled. Over the next 12 days, James Collip worked day and night to improve the ox-pancreas extract, and a second dose was injected on the 23 January. This was completely successful, not only in having no obvious side-effects, but in completely eliminating the glycosuria sign of diabetes. A dramatic moment Children dying from diabetic ketoacidosis were kept in large wards, often with 50 or more patients in a ward, mostly comatose. Grieving family members were often in attendance, awaiting the (until then, inevitable) death. In one of medicine's more dramatic moments Banting, Best, and Collip went from bed to bed, injecting an entire ward with the new purified extract. Before they had reached the last dying child, the first few were awakening from their coma, to the joyous exclamations of their families. J J McLeod Charles H Best James B Collip Continue reading >>
- Relative effectiveness of insulin pump treatment over multiple daily injections and structured education during flexible intensive insulin treatment for type 1 diabetes: cluster randomised trial (REPOSE)
- FDA approves first ‘artificial pancreas’ for diabetes treatment
- Day One of Life with Diabetes: Memories from Diagnosis Day
Frederick Banting’s Discovery Of Insulin In The 1920s Saved A Child's Life. It’s Still Saving Lives.
Toban B. / Flickr In the 1800s, the life expectancy for a 10-year-old child with Type 1 diabetes was about one year. Now people with Type 1 diabetes can expect to live around 68 years on average. One big reason why: the discovery of the hormone insulin by a team led by Frederick Banting, an early-20th-century scientist from Canada, which revolutionized treatment for the disease. Today, we celebrate Banting’s 125th birthday with a Google Doodle in his honor and with World Diabetes Day. Banting and his colleagues cracked a mystery that was thousands of years old Diabetes is one of the first human diseases on record. Ancient Egyptian manuscripts from as far back as 1500 BC mention a disease “characterized by the ‘too great emptying of urine.’” Around 500 BC, an Indian physician described patients with urine so sweet and sticky it attracted ants. These ancient reports were likely of Type 1 diabetes, the autoimmune version of the disease where antibodies damage the cells in the pancreas that secrete insulin. Insulin is the hormone responsible for taking sugar out of the bloodstream and transferring it into the body’s cells, where it can be used for energy. When the body stops making insulin, blood sugar rises. And unchecked high blood sugar can lead to a range of complications — from deteriorating eyesight to nerve damage to the buildup of chemicals called ketones in the blood. Ketones at high levels can be poisonous, causing the blood to turn acidic. (In Type 2 diabetes, the pancreas still produces insulin, but the body has become resistant to its effects. It’s a metabolic disease, rather than an autoimmune disease.) While ancient physicians recognized that the disease was a result of mismanagement of the body’s sugar, they didn’t know what caused it. (D Continue reading >>
Who Was Sir Frederick Banting? Google Doodle Celebrates Scientist Who Used Insulin To Treat Diabetes For The First Time
Today's Google doodle has been created in honour of Sir Frederick Banting , a Canadian scientist who was the first person to use insulin on humans as a treatment for diabetes. His work earned him the Nobel prize and today would have been his 125th birthday. Although diabetes has been affecting humans for years, there was no treatment for it until Banting's work in the 1920s. Insulin is the hormone naturally secreted by the pancreas that helps glucose from carbohydrates enter our cells and provide energy. Diabetes prevents this process from happening and, without it, blood sugar levels become too high. Around four million people in the UK suffer from diabetes and it can lead do death from kidney failure or heart disease. Sir Frederick's work After serving as a doctor in the First World War, Sir Frederick became interested in diabetes and the workings of the pancreas. In 1921 he worked on test dogs at the University of Toronto. In one case, he removed a dog's pancreas and ground it up to form an injection. When the dog suffered from diabetes, the injections kept it healthy. He made the connection with the importance of insulin and, the next year, treated the first diabetic person with the injection. In 1923, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work which would help save millions of lives. Sir Frederick Banting died in 1941 at the age of 49 from injuries sustained in a plane crash. During a transatlantic flight, his plane lost power in both engines and crashed - he died in hospital the next day. These days, insulin is produced in laboratories from bacteria. The World Health Organisation reports that 422 million people around the world suffered from diabetes in 2014. The organisation predicts that it will be the seventh leading cause of death by Continue reading >>
Discovery Of Insulin
The discovery of insulin was one of the most dramatic and important milestones in medicine - a Nobel Prize-winning moment in science. Witnesses to the first people ever to be treated with insulin saw "one of the genuine miracles of modern medicine," says the author of a book charting its discovery.1 Starved and sometimes comatose patients with diabetes would return to life after receiving insulin. But how and when was the discovery made, and who made it? How and when was insulin discovered? The discovery of insulin did not come out of the blue; it was made on the back of a growing understanding of diabetes mellitus during the nineteenth century. Diabetes itself had been understood by its symptoms as far back as the 1600s - when it was described as the "pissing evile" - and the urination and thirst associated with it had been recognized thousands of years before. A feared and usually deadly disease, doctors in the nineteenth century knew that sugar worsened diabetes and that limited help could be given by dietary restriction of sugar. But if that helped, it also caused death from starvation. Scientists observed the damaged pancreases of people who died with diabetes. In 1869, a German medical student found clusters of cells in the pancreas that would go on to be named after him. Paul Langerhans had discovered the beta cells that produce insulin. Other work in animals then showed that carbohydrate metabolism was impossible once the pancreas was removed - the amount of sugar in the blood and urine rose sharply, and death from diabetes soon followed. In 1889, Oscar Minkowski and Joseph von Mering removed a dog's pancreas to study its effects on digestion. They found sugar in the dog's urine after flies were noticed feeding off it. In humans, doctors would once have diagnose Continue reading >>
History Of Insulin
Go to: Insulin The discovery of insulin in 1922 marked a major breakthrough in medicine and therapy in patients with diabetes. Long before the discovery of insulin, it was hypothesized that the pancreas secreted a substance that controlled carbohydrate metabolism (5). For years, attempts at preparing pancreatic extracts to lower blood glucose were unsuccessful due to impurities and toxicities (6). Frederick Banting, an orthopedic surgeon, had the idea of isolating pancreatic islet extracts by ligating the pancreatic duct of dogs, keeping them alive until the acini degenerated, leaving the islets for isolation. He approached John Macleod, professor of physiology and department head at the University of Toronto, for laboratory space. Macleod granted him laboratory space, ten dogs for his experiments, a student research assistant (Charles Best), and provided supervision and guidance. The experiments began on May 17, 1921, and by September they showed that the depancreatized dog developed diabetes and that intravenous injection with their pancreatic extract, which they named isletin, lowered the blood glucose. By late 1921, the biochemist J.B. Collip joined the group and helped purify the isletin for human use. The first injection of the pancreatic extract to a 14-year-old boy by Banting and Best on January 11, 1922, caused a sterile abscess, had no effect on ketosis, and resulted in mild blood glucose reduction. Subsequent injections of the purified extract by Collip had promising results that same year. Blood glucose and glucosuria decreased, and ketonuria disappeared. Rosenfeld reported encouraging results in six more patients (6). Several months later, in 1923, Banting, Best, and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize. Eli Lilly began producing insulin from animal pancrea Continue reading >>
Insulin (medication)
"Insulin therapy" redirects here. For the psychiatric treatment, see Insulin shock therapy. Insulin is used as a medication to treat high blood sugar.[3] This includes in diabetes mellitus type 1, diabetes mellitus type 2, gestational diabetes, and complications of diabetes such as diabetic ketoacidosis and hyperosmolar hyperglycemic states.[3] It is also used along with glucose to treat high blood potassium levels.[4] Typically it is given by injection under the skin, but some forms may also be used by injection into a vein or muscle.[3] The common side effect is low blood sugar.[3] Other side effects may include pain or skin changes at the sites of injection, low blood potassium, and allergic reactions.[3] Use during pregnancy is relatively safe for the baby.[3] Insulin can be made from the pancreas of pigs or cows.[5] Human versions can be made either by modifying pig versions or recombinant technology.[5] It comes in three main types short–acting (such as regular insulin), intermediate–acting (such as NPH insulin), and longer-acting (such as insulin glargine).[5] Insulin was first used as a medication in Canada by Charles Best and Frederick Banting in 1922.[6] It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system.[7] The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$2.39 to $10.61 per 1,000 iu of regular insulin and $2.23 to $10.35 per 1,000 iu of NPH insulin.[8][9] In the United Kingdom 1,000 iu of regular or NPH insulin costs the NHS 7.48 pounds, while this amount of insulin glargine costs 30.68 pounds.[5] Medical uses[edit] Giving insulin with an insulin pen. Insulin is used to treat a number of diseases including diabetes and its acute complications such as diabetic ketoacid Continue reading >>
Would It Provide An Energy Or Stamina Boost If I Ate A Pill That Had 80,000 Calories, Or Could It Be Lethal?
Thank you for thinking wild. For the sake of argument, lets assume a pill like this exists and you can have it within one bite. You must be asking what effects the gigantic amount of calories would have on you. In short, probably nothing serious would happen. Pills always need to be devolved to further be digested. Let's also assume that your pill is fully dissolved in your stomach. Unfortunately, you body cannot digest as much as you eat, especially when the amount of food is exceeding your daily quota. The cells on the surface of small intestine take in glucose through proteins, so called transporters, so the delivery is mostly depending on the number of transporters. The take-in of fat is also regulated by a very complicated biochemical system. This system ignores things that it cannot handle. Your blood stream composition might change a little bit, depending what you have in your pill, sugar, fat or protein. But it will eventually come back to usual levels. Nothing odd would happen. However it sounds like a party for the microbial lives in your bowl. They are suddenly showered by numerous nutrients molecules that they have never dreamed of. Like you, they cannot make use of all of the rich soup either. After several happy hours of continious gluttony and reproduction, they and their younger generatons start to make gases. Then, you might just pass out the unshaped pill, its solute and gases. I wish you a healthy appetite. 20160516YS —— Continue reading >>
History Of Insulin
The modern age has been full of amazing technological advances -- high-speed travel, the Internet, blue M&M's... However, if you have type 1 diabetes, you are no doubt a big fan of one particular 20th century innovation: insulin therapy. Before there was insulin therapy, people whose bodies stopped producing the hormone didn't hang around for long; there wasn't much doctors could do for them. In the 19th century, after researchers figured out that the body needs this critical hormone to burn glucose as energy, doctors tried different ways to restart production of insulin in people with type 1 diabetes. Some physicians even tried feeding fresh pancreas to patients. The experiment failed (and probably left more than a few patients begging for a palate-cleansing sorbet), as did the other attempts to replace missing insulin. Finally, in 1922 a former divinity student named Dr. Frederick Banting figured out how to extract insulin from a dog's pancreas. Skeptical colleagues said the stuff looked like "thick brown muck." Banting injected the insulin into the keister of a 14-year-old boy named Leonard Thompson, whose body was so ravaged by diabetes that he weighed only 65 pounds. Little Leonard developed abscesses on his bottom and still felt lousy, though his blood sugar improved slightly. Encouraged, Banting refined the formula for insulin and tried again six weeks later. This time Leonard's condition improved rapidly. His blood sugar dropped from 520 mg/dl to a more manageable 120 mg/dl. He gained weight, and his strength returned. (Poor Lenny -- although his diabetes remained in control for years, he died of pneumonia when he was just 27.) Banting and a colleague, Dr. John Macleod, won the Nobel Prize for their work. Commercial production of insulin for treating diabetes be Continue reading >>
A Short History Of Insulin
The history of insulin starts in 1889. At a congres in Heidelberg, the then 31-year old Oskar Minkowski reported on the results of experiments he and von Mering performed with dogs. They did pancreatectomies in dogs in order to study their digestion. However, one of their lab-assistants noted an unexpected side-effect: the dogs started to suffer from polyuria. Well-aware that this was a symptom of diabetes in humans, Minkowski tested their urine for glucose and demonstrated that the dogs had indeed become diabetic. In subsequent experiments he ligated the ductus pancreaticus, performed subtotal pancreatectomies, and performed pancreas transplants, all of which led to the conclusion that the pancreas had to produce a hormone that was released in the blood and that influenced glucose levels. In the years after Minkowski's initial report, researchers across the world tried to isolate this elusive pancreatic hormone. However, suppletion of patients with all kinds of pancreatic extracts failed to produce the wanted results. Banting and Best It was only in 1921 that Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who worked under Collip and John Macleod in Toronto, succeeded in extracting the pancreatic hormone. The hormone was given the name insulin (at the suggestion of Sir Edward Sharpey-Schafer) to mark the fact that it was produced in the pancreatic islets. The first patient treated was a 14-year old boy named Leonard Thompson who was in diabetic coma and made a remarkable recovery. In 1923 Banting and MacLeod received the Nobel Prize for their discovery[a], and Banting was named Time's 'Man of the year'. Hagedorn The discovery of insulin revolutionized both the treatment of, and research into, diabetes. Initially, pancreatic extracts from slaughtered animals were the main source of Continue reading >>
