The History of Diabetes Essay

Diabetes has recently become a focal point of health care systems around the world due to its high prevalence and the severity of secondary complications caused by the disease. Over the course of my project on diabetes, I have had the opportunity to speak with a group of diabetics to understand from a patient’s perspective how diabetes is managed in a rural community. While I found that while some patients ignored treatment and refused to make any dietary changes, the majority of the patients I interviewed were well-informed and actively managing diabetes in their everyday life.

Diabetes is a disease where the body is unable to produce or use insulin effectively. Insulin is needed for proper storage and use of carbohydrates. Without it, blood sugar levels can become too high or too low, resulting in a diabetic emergency. It affects about 7.8% of the population. The incidence of diabetes is known to increase with age. It’s the leading cause of end-stage renal disease in the US, and is the primary cause of blindness and foot and leg amputation. It is known to cause neuropathy in up to 70% of diabetic patients. Individuals with diabetes are twice as likely to develop cardiovascular disease. There are two types of diabetes: Type 1 and Type 2.

Diabetes, Diabetes Mellitus, is a chronic illness this means that it has no cure and the symptoms persist over a long period of time. This illness is a result of an imbalance of hormones, insulin, produced in the pancreas. Insulin plays an important role in how the body uses food. Insulin enables the cells in the bloodstream to absorb and use glucose for fuel. If the pancreas produces too little or no insulin or if the insulin doesn’t work properly the person may become diabetic. Therefore, diabetics are not able to properly convert food into fuels needed by the body to function, which can seriously lead to physical consequences.

Without this discovery, people with diabetes would not have an ounce of hope. Even now, diabetes is not curable. There are ways to keep your sugar at steady levels, but those with diabetes do still suffer. Without the discovery of insulin in 1921, we would not have the knowledge on diabetes that we do today that helps us continue our research, and spread hope that one day there will be a diabetic-free

First and foremost, Dr. Frederick Banting was able to isolate insulin and use it to treat the metabolic disorder diabetes which has benefited Canada. As a result, numerous individuals have been able to receive treatment which has reduced the number of deaths. This decrease in mortalities has also lowered the number of debilitating conditions resulting from diabetes. In fact, the mortality rate for diabetes over the past forty-five years has dropped by over fifty percent (Center for Disease Control and Prevention). This decrease clearly indicates that the death rates for diabetes is gradually declining. This trend can be followed from the time insulin was discovered and has increased the prognosis and quality of life for many people. In addition, the number of diabetes cases in Canada has risen by almost thirty percent over the past twenty years (Public Health Agency of Canada 2). Although, the number of people living with diabetes is significantly

Diabetics have an insulin problem Diabetes is a result of insulin not performing its job correctly. Since insulin does more than remove glucose from the bloodstream, including producing proteins, storing fats, and other metabolic processes, diabetes can have severe consequences. If it is not treated properly diabetes can lead to heart disease, stroke, eye problems (including blindness), kidney failure, problems with teeth and gums, male sexual problems, nerve problems, and circulation problems. The circulation problems could result in foot or leg amputation (Reddy 2).

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.

Diabetes Mellitus is not a new disease. It was first recognized in ancient Egypt around 1500 B.C.E. It was considered a rare condition in comparison to present times. In 1812, diabetes was acknowledged as a clinical disorder. However, its prevalence at the time was not well documented. During those time periods, diabetes was considered fatal (Polonsky, 2014). The most significant progress came with the discovery of insulin. In 1921, Frederick G. Banting, MD and then student assistant, Charles H. Best, made the discovery of insulin. This discovery led Dr. Banting to being

This could lead to effects such as blindness, strokes, and heart disease. Until a method of injecting insulin appeared, it was difficult to tame diabetes. Diabetes affects many areas in the body but usually attacks the eyes, blood vessels, arteries, and kidneys. Despite this, scientists are still not sure what causes this disorder. According to Dr. Moalem, the reason is “a complex combination that can involve inheritance, infections, diet, and environmental factors” (Moalem, 25) so it is difficult to pin-point one exact reason. Hence, because of the lack of information, researchers still haven’t found a cure for

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.

Since glucose cannot enter the cells it builds up in the blood and the body's cells literally starve to death. Also since the body lacks sufficient energy from tissue glucose it begins to break down stored fat that produces ketenes, a byproduct of broken down fat, that makes the body's blood acidic interfering with respiration. About 700,000 people in the United States have Type I diabetes. Its symptoms are unusual thirst, frequent urination, extreme hunger, dramatic weight loss, fatigue, and irritability. If the disease is undetected or not properly treated it can quickly become fatal. Death by diabetic coma was usually the outcome of the disease before insulin was discovered.

Nearly 16 million people in the United States have diabetes, the disease classified as a problem with insulin. The problem could be that your body does not make insulin, does not make enough, or it simply does not know how to use it properly. Diabetes is also known as "diabetes mellitus".

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

Diabetes has been out for thousands of years and still no cure. researchers and scientist have been searching and searching for ways to overcome this disease but nothing yet. Everyone goals are to either improve, prevent, or cure this disease. Diabetes became very known around the seventeenth century because of a high percentage of people was found with sugar in their urine and blood. Diabetes is one of the fastest growing diseases that affects our society worldwide. The average person in this world does not know anything about this disease. The diabetes association said “In 2013 the estimate of 328 million people had diabetes throughout the world”. Society today need to be aware of what we are up against with this disease.

Diabetes is a systemic disease caused by a decrease in the secretion of insulin or reduced sensitivity or responsiveness to insulin by target tissue. (Beale, et al., 2011) The incidence of diabetes is growing rapidly in the United States and worldwide. An estimated 347 million people around the world are afflicted with diabetes. (Whalen, et al., 2012) According to World Health Organization (WHO), Diabetes prevalence among adults over 18 years of age has risen from 4.7% in 1980 to 8.5% in 2014. It is the major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and limbic amputation. World Health Organization (WHO) projects that diabetes will be the 7th leading cause of death in 2030. It is a complex and costly disease that can affect nearly every organ in the body and result in devastating consequences. The leading cause of non-traumatic lower extremity amputations, renal failure, and blindness in working-age adults, diabetes is also a major cause of premature mortality, stroke, cardiovascular disease, peripheral vascular disease, congenital malformations, perinatal mortality, and disability. (Cefalu, 2000) Insulin therapy and oral hypoglycemic agents have demonstrated improvement in glycaemic control. However, Insulin therapy has some disadvantages such as ineffectiveness following oral administration, short shelf life, of the need for constant refrigeration, and fatal hypoglycaemia, in the event of excess dosage.