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Canadian surgeon, Frederick Banting had the
vision on how to find not only the cause but a treatment for the
so-called "sugar disease or sugar diabetes". Late in 19th century,
scientists had the general conception that there was a connection
between the pancreas and diabetes. In 1920, Banting realized that the
pancreas' digestive juice was destroying the islets of Langerhans
hormone before it could be isolated. If he could stop the pancreas from
working, but keep the islets of Langerhans going, he should be able to
find the stuff. For further information, read Glucose
And Insulin: The Diabetic Connection
In
May, 1921, Banting with the help of an assistant, began his experiments.
By August they had the first conclusive results: when they gave the
material extracted from the islets of Langerhans to diabetic dogs, their
abnormally high blood sugars were lowered. Further, it was experimented
on humans with successful results. In 1923, the Nobel Prize was awarded
to Banting. This is how discovery of insulin shaped human lives.
The
discovery of insulin is one of the revolutionary moments in diabetes
medicine. However, it took considerable time to find the perfect dosages
for people of different age and to develop manufacturing processes to
make enough insulin of consistent strength and purity. One year diabetes
was an automatic death sentence. The next, people, even children had
hopes of living full and productive lives even with the disease. Thus
the discovery of insulin played the role of diabetes treatment player
with aplomb. Type diabetes such as type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes,
juvenile diabetes can be treated and symptoms of diabetes can be
improved with insulin.
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