The Invention of Insulin

After reading the first half of chapter two, The Analytic Project, I was most interested in the section titled, The Discovery of Insulin. I furthered my research of this area after reading and was able to better understand insulin and why it was such an important discovery. With that being said, diabetes was the result of malfunctions of the pancreas. Before the discovery of insulin, diabetes was a disease that usually caused death, especially during the late nineteenth century. Many feared this disease, and according to A Philosophy of Science, A new Introduction, most people lost their life within a year of being diagnosed with the disease, even with the best treatment available at the time.

regulate glucose levels had artificially been altered (“The Discovery of Insulin”). The results were groundbreaking and the diabetic dogs responded well to the injections, marking a major step forward in diabetes research (“The Discovery of Insulin”). Through the help of Professor John Macleod of the University of Toronto, they were able to continue their research (“The Discovery of Insulin”). Finally, in January of 1922, testing Dr. Banting’s developments in diabetes treatment on human beings had finally been completed and the results led to the ultimate development of the insulin treatment that is still used to this day (Simoni, Hill and Vaughan 31).

The Diabetes Quebec Association states that in the past, "a diagnosis of diabetes meant certain death". This was held true until a Canadian physician, Frederick Banting, discovered the hormone insulin in 1921. He was able to isolate a unknown matter from the pancreas of a dog and inject it into another dogs pancreas 's. This discovery enabled them to save the lives of these diabetic dogs. Through trial and error Banting was able to perfect the purification of insulin in order for it to be injected on a daily basis to compensate for the insulin not being produced by the pancreas to control the blood sugar in hyperglycemic patients.

During the year 1889, two researchers, Joseph Von Mering and Oskar Minkowski, had discovered the disease that is known today as diabetes. Diabetes is a disease in which the insulin levels (a hormone produced in unique cells called the islets of Langerhans found in the pancreas) in the bloodstream are irregular and therefore affect the way the body uses sugars, as well as other nutrients. Up until the 1920’s, it was known that being diagnosed with diabetes was a death sentence which usually affected “children and adults under 30.” Those who were diagnosed were usually very hungry and thirsty, which are two of the symptoms associated with diabetes. However, no matter how much they ate, their bodies wouldn’t be able to use the nutrients due

The development of insulin saved many lives throughout the 1920’s. Insulin allows your body to turn blood sugar into energy, and diabetes patients don’t have an important hormone called insulin. In fact, thousands of people had this issue. In the 1900’s, the only treatments for diabetes were starvation diets and very strict exercise program. Dr. Frederick Bating, the inventor of insulin, had spent a lot of his time studying the disease of diabetes. He thought if he could isolate insulin in animals, it would be possible to use it to treat people with diabetes. Later on his theory proved to be correct. Dr. Frederick Banting needed a lab to test his theory and work on it so he could have insulin mass produced and treat the disease of diabetes.

In the year 1921, insulin became discovered and it helps save countless numbers of lives in the following years. Leading up to this discovery, Fredrick Banting worked very hard to find out what insulin actually is and its function. In chapters two through four, Bankston writes about how Fredrick was born in

In 1921, scientist, Frederick Banting, and his lab assistant, Charles Best, found insulin in the pancreatic extracts of dogs. They injected the insulin into a dog and discovered that it lowered high blood sugar levels back to normal. With the aid of James Collip and J.J.R. Macleod, the scientists developed insulin for human treatment. In 1922, Leonard Thompson, a fourteen-year-old boy dying of diabetes, was injected with the first human dose of insulin, saving his life

Dr. Frederick Banting believed that the digestive juices from the pancreas could restrict the secretion of what we now know as insulin. In 1921, Professor John Macleod, a leader in canadian diabetes research at the university of Toronto granted Banting a laboratory, 10 dogs, and an assistant to aid him in his experiments to test his theories. Banting and his assistant, Charles Best begin their tests by removing the pancreas of one of the dogs; the dog was then diagnosed

Chronic elevated glucose in blood (hyperglycemia) with disturbances metabolism of protein, fat and carbohydrate resulting from disorder in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. (1) Expected to increase diabetic patients by 2025 to approximately 300 million people in the worldwide (2) In ancient times it was difficult to identify diabetes as the ability of patients to heal weak, the researchers think the diabetes resulting from defect in the bladder and kidneys are the cause of diabetes. (6)

Diabetes and other diseases populate the earth in modern society. Diabetes is a large recurring autoimmune disease in the United States where the pancreas stops producing a hormone, insulin, that enable the body to gain energy from food. This disease requires multiple insulin injections daily. As many as 1.25 million Americans

Insulin deficiency also causes protein metabolism in skeletal muscle.This leads to increased release of alanine to the circulation.These substances then enter the liver where they are used as substrates for gluconeogenesis which is overly stimulated in the absence of insulin and the elevated glucagon.The increased rate of glucose production in the liver,coupled with the glucagon-mediated inhibition of glucose storage into glycogen results in the overproduction of glucose release from the liver and leads consequent hyperglycemia.

Throughout the years, people who research diabetes have made discoveries and treatments. An example would be the discovery of insulin by Sir Edward Albert. His study of the pancreas led him to discover the substance, insulin. And in 1916, Elliot Joslin published the first edition of the treatment of Diabetes and is known for being one of the most influential individuals in diabetes care. Furthermore, from 1921 to 1923, Frederick Banting and his assistant, Charles Best, withdrew insulin from dogs, in a laboratory provided by Professor J.J.R. Macleod of the University of Toronto, and injected it back into dogs without a pancreas to discover that their blood sugar levels went down. James Collip purified the extract to use in humans. In 1923, Banting

Diabetic patients go through allot of problem and they need to get a control of their own life style, which includes proper food, exercises etc. For example "Obesity" and type 2 diabetes go hand in hand. Overweight people are at much greater risk of developing diabetes than those who are not obese. Almost 90% of people with type 2 diabetes are overweight. The number of diabetes cases among American adults jumped by a third during the 1990s, and more increases are expected. This rapid increase in diabetes is due to the growing prevalence of obesity and extra weight in the United States population

Insulin was first used in the treatment of diabetes to control the level of blood glucose in diabetes mellitus by Frederick Banting and Charles Best in 1922. It became obvious that insulin could be a way to maintain the disease in a quick way. We now know that insulin may be used to control the hyperglycemia of virtually any form of diabetes. Insulin was originally prepared by isolation from animal pancreatic tissue, however, due to the use of recombinant insulin has lower the immunogenicity of commercially available insulin. It is now prepared by recombinant DNA technology with

Diabetes is considered a very ancient disease, with early observations made in Egypt 1500 BC. The disease has always been well known for its severe implications on the lifestyle of patients. Diabetes has a very long-lasting and complex history, which is well documented. There are historical milestones that have been significant for understanding the disease and developing treatments. This paper reviews such historical events, including the discovery of insulin, that have been influential on modern diabetic medicine. Moreover, patient experiences with insulin injections are also discussed. A fascinating component of diabetic history is also the transition from fairly unsophisticated treatment approaches to more medically developed procedures in the Twentieth Century. This review also examines early ideas of the insulin pen injector and describes how the first NovoPen in 1985 was developed. This will contribute to the background information of the research project, which aims to investigate what impact the first NovoPen in 1985 had on the treatment of diabetes. The research project will take clinical, as well as patient experiences of using the first NovoPen into consideration to reach a conclusion about its influence on treating diabetes. Nowadays, new generations of the NovoPen family have been developed, which are very popular among diabetic patients as a treatment option. Due to this remarkable history of the NovoPen in diabetic medicine, it is of interest to investigate