A Brief History
On April 15, 1923, the hormone insulin became widely available for the treatment of diabetes. Prior to the discovery of insulin and its adaptation for medical use, diabetes was an often-fatal disease of the inability of the body to process glucose.
Digging Deeper
Even today, diabetes claims millions of lives per year, as well as causing a variety of related maladies such as kidney failure, blindness, and nerve damage. Insulin is a hormone produced in the pancreas, and was discovered in 1921 by Frederick Banting of Canada, a Nobel Prize winning discovery.
By 1923, insulin became available as a treatment for diabetes, at that time recovered from the pancreases of animals such as cows and pigs. A synthetic insulin that did not have to be harvested from animals became available in the 1980s, an advancement that reduced the chance of allergic reactions and improved the consistent purity of the medication. Another plus was the elimination of relying on animals for human use.
Today, about 37 million Americans suffer from diabetes, and over eight million are using insulin to treat the disease. Thank goodness for the researchers that have saved so many millions of lives!
Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: Do you know anyone that uses insulin?
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Bliss, Michael. The Discovery of Insulin: Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition. The University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Scheiner, Gary. Think Like a Pancreas: A Practical Guide to Managing Diabetes with Insulin. Balance, 2020.
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