Educational article on the history of diabetes

Educational article on the history of diabetes

Diabetes History and the Discovery of Insulin

  • Diabetes mellitus was named 3000 years ago as it was observed to attract flies and ants.
  • At the beginning of the 19th century man first analyzed the blood sugar level.
  • In 1869: German Paul Langerhans observes cells in the pancreas that are different from others that were later called the Langerhan’s islets.
  • In 1890: Mering and Minkowski prove that the Langerhan’s islets release a substance that controls blood sugar level.
  • On November 14, 1922: Canadian Frederick Banting and his student Charles Best were able to isolate this substance from the pancreas and give it to diabetics and it was called insulin (island in Latin), and they were then awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery.
  • World Diabetes Day is celebrated on November 14 of each year, a date set by the International Diabetes Federation and the World Health Organization to commemorate the birthday of Frederick Banting, who together with Charles Best contributed to the discovery of insulin in 1922, which has become essential for the survival of diabetics.
  • Before the discovery of insulin, the patient was either starving to death from the harsh diet or from his disease. But in the 1980s, insulin was made from E. coli and then recently made from yeast and was called human insulin, which is the best because yeast is eaten by humans, while E. coli is something that humans expel.
  • In the beginning, this insulin was made from cows or pigs, and the body’s acceptance of it had many problems.