The Discovery Of Insulin
Before the discovery of insulin, diabetes was a feared disease that most certainly led to death. Doctors knew that sugar worsened the condition of diabetic patients and that the most effective treatment was to put the patients on very strict diets where sugar intake was kept to a minimum. At best, this treatment could buy patients a few extra years, but it never saved them. In some cases, the harsh diets even caused patients to die of starvation. During the nineteenth century, observations of patients who died of diabetes often showed that the pancreas was damaged. In 1869, a German medical student, Paul Langerhans, found that within the pancreatic tissue that produces digestive juices there were clusters of cells whose function was unknown. Some of these cells were eventually shown to be the insulin-producing beta cells. Later, in honor of the person who discovered them, the cell clusters were named the islets of Langerhans. In 1889 in Germany, physiologist Oskar Minkowski and physician Joseph von Mering, showed that if the pancreas was removed from a dog, the animal got diabetes. But if the duct through which the pancreatic juices flow to the intestine was ligated - surgically tied off so the juices couldn't reach the intestine - the dog developed minor digestive problems but no diabetes. So it seemed that the pancreas must have at least two functions: To produce digestive juices To produce a substance that regulates the sugar glucose This hypothetical internal secretion was the key. If a substance could actually be isolated, the mystery of diabetes would be solved. Progress, however, was slow. Banting's Idea In October 1920 in Toronto, Canada, Dr. Frederick Banting, an unknown surgeon with a bachelor's degree in medicine, had the idea that the pancreatic digestive ju Continue reading >>
Insulin: Discovery And Controversy
During the first two decades of the 20th century, several investigators prepared extracts of pancreas that were often successful in lowering blood sugar and reducing glycosuria in test animals. However, they were unable to remove impurities, and toxic reactions prevented its use in humans with diabetes. In the spring of 1921, Frederick G. Banting, a young Ontario orthopedic surgeon, was given laboratory space by J.J.R. Macleod, the head of physiology at the University of Toronto, to investigate the function of the pancreatic islets. A student assistant, Charles Best, and an allotment of dogs were provided to test Banting’s hypothesis that ligation of the pancreatic ducts before extraction of the pancreas, destroys the enzyme-secreting parts, whereas the islets of Langerhans, which were believed to produce an internal secretion regulating sugar metabolism, remained intact. He believed that earlier failures were attributable to the destructive action of trypsin. The name “insuline” had been introduced in 1909 for this hypothetic substance. Their experiments produced an extract of pancreas that reduced the hyperglycemia and glycosuria in dogs made diabetic by the removal of their pancreases. They next developed a procedure for extraction from the entire pancreas without the need for duct ligation. This extract, now made from whole beef pancreas, was successful for treating humans with diabetes. Facilitating their success was a development in clinical chemistry that allowed blood sugar to be frequently and accurately determined in small volumes of blood. Success with purification was largely the work of J.B. Collip. Yield and standardization were improved by cooperation with Eli Lilly and Company. When the Nobel Prize was awarded to Banting and Macleod for the discove Continue reading >>
The Cost Of Insulin
The price of insulin has more than tripled in ten years. Not everybody pays full price, but many find the cost of insulin complicates their life. This week, we’ll cover why insulin prices are so high. Next week, we’ll address what to do about it. According to this story on CBS News, people with diabetes are “cutting back [on their insulin doses] or even going without the drug,” putting them at greater risk for complications. Insulin costs have soared from $100–$200 per month a few years ago to $400–$500 a month now. CBS News quotes a college student saying her bill for insulin has risen from $130 to $495 per month. She has given up her insulin pump and gone back to injections because of expense. One of her friends has cut her dose down to 80% of what’s ordered to save money. This has become common practice for many. A doctor in Montana reported that insulin prices greatly complicate people’s care. “I have patients who tell me that they have to make a decision between food and insulin, and their rent and insulin.” Why is this happening? When insulin was discovered the 1920s, the doctors who found it gave it away. It immediately started saving lives for people with Type 1 diabetes. Now insulin has become a $24-billion-a-year market globally and is predicted to pass $48 billion in only five more years. And people around the world who need it can’t afford it. There are several causes for the price spikes, but many of them come down to America’s pretend “free market” approach to health care. We are seeing these problems now with the controversy over one brand of epinephrine injections, whose manufacturer increased their price by 500% and then paid their CEO a nearly $19 million salary. Here are some ways American economics are making insulin unaff Continue reading >>
Nicolae Paulescu
Tweet Nicolae Paulescu was a Romanian scientist who claimed to have been the first person to discover insulin, which he called pancreine. were awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for creating usable insulin, Paulescu wrote to the Nobel Prize committee claiming that he had discovered and used insulin first. His claims were rejected, but thanks to a British professor called Ian Murray Paulescu’s achievements are now recognised as being significant in the history of insulin. Medical training Paulescu was born in Bucharest in 1869. He became fascinated with physics and chemistry as he grew up and, upon graduating from the Mihai Viteazul High School in Bucharest in 1888, moved to Paris and enrolled in medical school. Paulescu graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree and was soon appointed assistant surgeon at the Notre-Dame du Perpétuel-Secours Hospital in 1897. Three years later he returned to Romania where he served as Head of the Physiology Department of the University of Bucharest Medical School. He remained in this position until his death in 1931 Pancreine research In 1916, Paulescu developed an aqueous (watery) pancreatic extract which, when injected into a dog with diabetes, had a normalising effect on its blood sugar levels. Paulescu’s pancreine was an extract of bovine pancreas in salted water, purified with hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide. Shortly after, Paulescu was called to service in the Romanian Army during World War I, returning in 1921. He then wrote an extensive whitepaper about the effect of the extract, titled ‘Research on the role of the pancreas in food assimilation’, which was published in August 1921. Paulescu secured the patent rights for his method of manufacturing pancreine on April 10 1922 by the Romanian Mi Continue reading >>
Evolution Of Diabetes Insulin Delivery Devices
Go to: Introduction The publication of the results of the landmark Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) in 1993 clearly demonstrated the need for intensified methods of blood glucose (BG) control in type 1 diabetes to prevent complications such as retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy.1 Five years later, the importance of intensive glycemic control to prevent microvascular complications in type 2 diabetes was shown by the United Kingdom Prospective Diabetes Study (UKPDS).2 However, the need for more convenient, safer, and more effective methods of insulin administration had been apparent long before the DCCT and UKPDS results were published.3 When insulin was first discovered in the early 1920s, the method of delivery used large glass syringes and reusable needles, both of which needed sterilization by boiling after each use. Needles were sharpened with a pumice stone so they could be reused. For over 50 years, vial and syringe remained the only delivery option available for routine clinical use. The first manufactured insulin pump was introduced in the 1970s, while the first manufactured insulin pen, the NovoPen® (Novo Nordisk), was introduced in 1985.4 Since then, many improvements and innovations have been made to both insulin pumps and pen devices. Furthermore, insulin analogs have become available that enable both continuous subcutaneous insulin infusion (CSII) using an insulin pump and insulin therapy using multiple daily injections (MDI) to more closely match physiologic insulin patterns.5–8 For various reasons that are unrelated to the scientific evidence base, the rate of adoption of insulin pens and pumps has differed greatly between the United States and Europe. Insulin pumps are more widely used on the American side of the Atlantic than on t Continue reading >>
Treating Diabetes: 1921 To The Present Day
The lives of people with diabetes has changed considerably in 50 years. They now have specific tools and easier access to information than ever before. The healthcare professionals who treat them also know more about the complexity of the disease, and which treatments work best. Pending the next medical revolution, Diabetes Québec is demanding the implementation of a national strategy to fight diabetes – a strategy founded on education, prevention, support and treatment. The last 60 years have clearly demonstrated that people with diabetes who are well informed, properly supported and treated appropriately live longer lives in better health. The discovery of insulin and glycemic control Insulin, discovered in 1921 by the legendary Banting, Best and MacLeod collaboration, is nothing short of a miracle. Worldwide, it has saved thousands of patients from certain death. Before the discovery of insulin, diabetics were doomed. Even on a strict diet, they could last no more than three or four years. However, despite the many types of insulin and the first oral hypoglycemic agents that came to market around 1957 in Canada, glycemia control – the control of blood glucose (sugar) levels – still remains an imprecise science. In the 1950s, the method a person used to control his blood glucose levels was to drop a reagent tablet into a small test tube containing a few drops of urine mixed with water. The resulting colour – from dark blue to orange – indicated the amount of sugar in the urine. Even when they monitored their patients closely, doctors realized that blood glucose levels had to be much better controlled in order to delay the major complications significantly affecting their patients’ lives: blindness, kidney disease, gangrene, heart attack and stroke. A disc Continue reading >>
History Of Insulin
Dr Frederick Banting and medical student Charles Best perform experiments on the pancreases of dogs in Toronto, Canada. Professor John Macleod provides Banting and Best with a laboratory to carry out the experiments. When the pancreases are removed the dogs showed symptoms of diabetes. The pancreas was then sliced and ground up into an injectable extract. This is injected a few times a day which helped the dogs to regain health. Given the early success, Macleod wants to see more evidence that the procedure worked and provides pancreases from cows to make the extract which is named ‘insulin’. Bertram Collip, a biochemist, joins the research team to provide help with purifying the insulin to be used for testing on humans. Banting and Best clearly had confidence in the insulin as they were the first humans to test the insulin by injecting themselves with it which caused them to experience weakness and dizziness, signs of hypoglycemia. After the group had experimented enough to gain an understanding of the required doses and how best to treat hypoglycemia, their insulin is deemed ready to be tried on patients. Tweet Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disorder that results in hyperglycemia (high blood glucose levels) due to the body: Being ineffective at using the insulin it has produced; also known as insulin resistance and/or Being unable to produce enough insulin Type 2 diabetes is characterised by the body being unable to metabolise glucose (a simple sugar). This leads to high levels of blood glucose which over time may damage the organs of the body. From this, it can be understood that for someone with diabetes something that is food for ordinary people can become a sort of metabolic poison. This is why people with diabetes are advised to avoid sources of dieta Continue reading >>
The Tumultuous Discovery Of Insulin: Finally, Hidden Story Is Told
TORONTO— The discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto 60 years ago ranks with the greatest moments in the history of medicine. For the first time, diabetic men and women, many of whom were until then doomed to an ineffectual starvation diet followed by coma and death within a year or two, were offered a treatment that restored them, sometimes in just a few weeks, to rosy-cheeked health. But no comprehensive, accurate and detailed account of the course of events that led to so astonishing a leap forward in the treatment of disease has ever appeared - neither at Toronto nor anywhere else. Some relevant documents were ignored by scholars; others were suppressed by the University of Toronto to avoid embarrassment to surviving researchers. But with the death of the last principal in 1978, historical research could begin without impediment. Michael Bliss, a historian at the university, believes he has now pulled the story together from partial accounts, published and unpublished, and by delving into such hitherto unexplored resources as the Nobel Prize archives at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Professor Bliss's account, ''The Discovery of Insulin,'' to be published this month in Canada by McClelland & Stewart, and next month in this country by the University of Chicago Press, shows to an extent previously unmatched the full dimensions of the feuding and bickering, the jockeying for position and reward, the personal flaws and weaknesses, as well as strengths, of the all-too-human researchers whose achievement did so much for so many. As J.@J.@R. Macleod, one of the two men who shared a Nobel Prize for insulin in 1923, once said: ''If every discovery entails as much squabbling over priority, etc., as this one has, it will put the job of trying to make them o Continue reading >>
The History Of Diabetes
For 2,000 years diabetes has been recognized as a devastating and deadly disease. In the first century A.D. a Greek, Aretaeus, described the destructive nature of the affliction which he named “diabetes” from the Greek word for “siphon.” Eugene J. Leopold in his text Aretaeus the Cappodacian describes Aretaeus’ diagnosis: “…For fluids do not remain in the body, but use the body only as a channel through which they may flow out. Life lasts only for a time, but not very long. For they urinate with pain and painful is the emaciation. For no essential part of the drink is absorbed by the body while great masses of the flesh are liquefied into urine.” Physicians in ancient times, like Aretaeus, recognized the symptoms of diabetes but were powerless to effectively treat it. Aretaeus recommended oil of roses, dates, raw quinces, and gruel. And as late as the 17th century, doctors prescribed “gelly of viper’s flesh, broken red coral, sweet almonds, and fresh flowers of blind nettles.” Early Discoveries-Human Guinea Pigs In the 17th century a London physician, Dr. Thomas Willis, determined whether his patients had diabetes or not by sampling their urine. If it had a sweet taste he would diagnose them with diabetes mellitus- “honeyed” diabetes. This method of monitoring blood sugars went largely unchanged until the 20th century. Despite physicians’ valiant efforts to combat diabetes, their patients remained little more than human guinea pigs. In the early 20th century, diabetologists such as Dr. Frederick Allen prescribed low calorie diets-as little as 450 calories per day for his patients. His diet prolonged the life of people with diabetes but kept them weak and suffering from near starvation. In effect, the most a person afflicted with diabetes coul Continue reading >>
How A Boy Became The First To Beat Back Diabetes
In a regular column on the PBS NewsHour website, Dr. Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan, will highlight the anniversary of a momentous event that continues to shape modern medicine. On Jan. 11, 1922, a 14-year-old boy hovered between life and death. His name was Leonard Thompson and he was suffering the end stages of diabetes mellitus. Leonard Thompson. Photo courtesy of Eli Lilly and Company Archives. Copyright Eli Lilly and Company. All Rights Reserved. Because the only treatment available was a starvation diet, the boy weighed a mere 65 pounds when he was admitted to the Toronto General Hospital. Worse, Leonard was drifting in and out of a diabetic coma. His father was so desperate to save the boy that he agreed to let the doctors inject Leonard with a newly discovered wonder drug that had never been tried on another human being. The doctors called it insulin. Insulin was discovered a year earlier by Frederick Banting, a tenacious, young surgeon from London, Ontario. During the fall of 1920, Dr. Banting became fascinated by studies on the role of the pancreas in regulating the metabolism of sugar and carbohydrates. Soon enough, he hit upon the idea of ligating, or tying off, the pancreatic duct in order to isolate the gland’s “internal secretion,” a yet-to-be-identified biological substance which facilitated this critical metabolic process. Soon after, Banting took his idea to a world-renowned University of Toronto physiologist named J.J.R. Macleod. Initially skeptical of the young surgeon’s idea, Macleod eventually and somewhat begrudgingly lent Banting a makeshift laboratory for his use during the summer of 1921. Macleod also provided some dogs for him to experiment upon and assigned an eager medi Continue reading >>
Smart Insulin Patch Could Replace Painful Injections For Diabetes
Media contact: Mark Derewicz, 919-923-0959, [email protected] CHAPEL HILL, NC – Painful insulin injections could become a thing of the past for the millions of Americans who suffer from diabetes, thanks to a new invention from researchers at the University of North Carolina and NC State, who have created a “smart insulin patch” that can detect increases in blood sugar levels and secrete doses of insulin into the bloodstream whenever needed. The patch – a thin square no bigger than a penny – is covered with more than one hundred tiny needles, each about the size of an eyelash. These “microneedles” are packed with microscopic storage units for insulin and glucose-sensing enzymes that rapidly release their cargo when blood sugar levels get too high. The study, which is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the new, painless patch could lower blood glucose in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes for up to nine hours. More pre-clinical tests and subsequent clinical trials in humans will be required before the patch can be administered to patients, but the approach shows great promise. “We have designed a patch for diabetes that works fast, is easy to use, and is made from nontoxic, biocompatible materials,” said co-senior author Zhen Gu, PhD, a professor in the Joint UNC/NC State Department of Biomedical Engineering. Gu also holds appointments in the UNC School of Medicine, the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and the UNC Diabetes Care Center. “The whole system can be personalized to account for a diabetic’s weight and sensitivity to insulin,” he added, “so we could make the smart patch even smarter.” Diabetes affects more than 387 million people worldwide, and that number is expected to grow to 592 mill Continue reading >>
The Discovery Of Insulin: A Medical Marvel For The Sugar Sickness
Diabetes Before Insulin Diabetes, from the Greek word meaning "to pass through" or "pipe-like" has been claiming lives for thousands of years. A diabetic's body is unable to utilize food's nutrients as energy, causing extra sugar to collect in blood and urine (Bliss 20). Food simply "passes through" the body, without absorbing any nutrients. Slim Chances With no effective treatment aside from a semi-starvation diet, a diabetic's outlook appeared grim. Before 1922, diabetic children rarely lived a year after diagnosis, five percent of adults died within two years, and less than 20 percent lived more than ten (Berger 57). Untreated diabetics faced blindness, loss of limbs, kidney failure, stroke, heart attack and death (Yuwiler 12). Continue reading >>
How Did Diabetics Manage Before The Invention Of Insulin?
The Type 1 diabetics lived about a year after diagnosis. I once read of a special diet for diabetics created sometime after 1900. It was given in a two day cycle. On day one, the patient had salad giving themselves some nutrients. On day two, they drank a lot of salad oil, giving some calories. This did lower the blood glucose. It seemed to help some, and, no I don't know the exact rationale behind the diet, but has some similarities to today's Atkinson diet. Type two diabetics mostly didn't know they had a problem until late in the course of the disease. They mostly died early of "natural causes." Some died of a disease kind of like T1DM, very late in the course of their disease. Continue reading >>
If High Insulin Levels Promote Cancer, What Does This Mean For Diabetics Receiving Insulin Injections?
Insulin syringes come in different sizes depending on the dose of insulin you need. Your healthcare provider or pharmacist will help you find the right size syringe. Use the correct size insulin syringe to make sure you get the right dose of insulin. You can inject insulin into your abdomen, upper arm, buttocks, hip, and the front or side of the thigh. Insulin works fastest when it is injected into the abdomen. Do not inject insulin into areas where you have a wound or bruising. Insulin injected into wounds or bruises may not get into your body correctly. Use a different area within the site each time you inject insulin. For example, inject insulin into different areas in your abdomen. Insulin injected into the same area can cause lumps, swelling, or thickened skin. How do I inject the insulin with a syringe? Clean the skin where you will inject the insulin. You can use an alcohol pad or a cotton swab dipped in alcohol. Grab a fold of your skin. Gently pinch the skin and fat between your thumb and first finger. Insert the needle straight into your skin. Do not hold the syringe at an angle. Make sure the needle is all the way into the skin. Let go of the pinched tissue. Push down on the plunger to inject the insulin. Press on the plunger until the insulin is gone. Keep the needle in place for 5 seconds after you inject the insulin. Pull out the needle. Press on your injection site for 5 to 10 seconds. Do not rub. This will keep insulin from leaking out. Throw away your used insulin syringe as directed. Do not recap the syringe before you throw it away. Continue reading >>
- A Patient With Diabetes No Longer Needs Insulin After Receiving A Bioengineered “Pancreas”
- World's first diabetes app will be able to check glucose levels without drawing a drop of blood and will be able to reveal what a can of coke REALLY does to sugar levels
- Mice Have Had Their Diabetes Reversed After Receiving Pancreatic Tissue Grown in Rats
Who Was Sir Frederick Banting And How Did He Discover That Insulin Could Treat Diabetes?
Millions of people around the world suffer from diabetes, but until the 1920s there was no treatment for it. Sir Frederick Banting was a Canadian scientist whose pioneering work using insulin to treat diabetes earned him the Nobel prize. He only lived to be 49 but on November 14 - what would have been his 125th birthday - Google has celebrated him with a commemorative Doodle. November 14 is also World Diabetes Day. How does insulin work? For your body to use glucose, the fuel that comes from carbohydrates, it must be transferred from the blood to your body’s cells to be used up as energy. The vital hormone that allows glucose to enter cells is called insulin and it is normally produced naturally in the pancreas. If this process doesn’t happen, the level of sugar in the blood becomes too high. Being unable to naturally produce insulin is the disease known as diabetes. More than 4 million people in the UK are diagnosed with it, and it is a major cause of kidney failure, heart attacks and blindness. Who was Sir Frederick Banting? Frederick Banting was born on November 14 1891 in Alliston, a settlement in the Canadian province of Ontario. He served in the First World War despite initially being refused while in medical school for poor eyesight since the army wanted more doctors on the front line. After the war, Sir Frederick had become deeply interested in diabetes and the pancreas, reading much of the work on the matter that had come before him. Scientists including Edward Schafer had speculated that diabetes was caused by a lack of a protein hormone produced in the pancreas, which Schafer had named insulin. Previous studies had noted that patients with diabetes had a damaged pancreas. How insulin came to treat humans Sir Frederick got to work on looking into the matte Continue reading >>
