INSULIN

 FROM SAMPATH’S DESK:

 

 

INSULIN

Perhaps a layman may not know the importance and value of Insulin. For diabetics, especially those with Type-I Diabetes, it is a sine qua non, the be-all, and end-all. Insulin is a boon and nectar for them. Once considered a rich man’s health infirmity and malady, nowadays, diabetes affects people from all echelons of society. The incidence of diabetes, once an urban bane, is now fast percolating into the rural population as well mostly because of sedentary lifestyles.

 

Lifestyles have traversed too long and too fast over the centuries. In fact, we have come a long way in science and technology - their state-of-the-art products and by-products - simple examples being the Internet, iPhones, and high-speed travel. For those used to these amazing gadgets, devices, and facilities, life without them would be boring, rough, and tough; isn’t it? However, if you happen to suffer from diabetes, you should be a big fan of one particular 20^th-century discovery viz. INSULIN - the panacea for the adverse metabolic condition.

 

Till the advent of insulin in 1921 discovered by Sir Fredrick Grant Banting (Canada), Charles Herbert Best (Canada), and John James Rickard Macleod (Scotland) at the University of Toronto, and subsequently purified by James Bertra, Colip (Canada), the doctor community was clueless and kept their fingers crossed, perplexed and nonplussed as they were, pondering how to treat the diabetic patients.

 

Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that has a number of important functions in the human body, particularly in the control of blood glucose levels and preventing hyperglycemia (high levels of sugar in the blood). Insulin also has an effect on several other areas of the body, including the synthesis of lipids and regulation of enzymatic activity. Needless to emphasize, uncontrolled diabetes for long periods causes health complications.

 

How did this wonderful breakthrough blossom? Yes, let’s peek into a little more than 100 years ago!

 

Earlier in 1889, two German researchers, Oskar Minkowski, and Joseph von Mering, found that when the pancreas gland was removed from dogs, the animals developed symptoms of diabetes and died later. This led to the idea that the pancreas was the site where some special substance (insulin) was produced.

 

Later experimenters narrowed this search down to the ‘Islets of Langerhans’ (specialized cells in the pancreas). In 1910, Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Shafer suggested only one chemical was missing from the pancreas in people with diabetes. He decided to call this substance 'insulin', which comes from the Latin word insula, meaning “island.”

 

With this murky concoction, Banting and Best kept another dog with severe diabetes alive for 70 days - the dog died only when there was no more extract. With this success, the researchers, along with the help of colleagues J.B. Collip and John Macleod, went a step further. A more refined and pure form of insulin was developed, this time from the pancreas of cattle.

 

In January 1922, Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old boy dying from diabetes in a Toronto hospital, became the first person to receive an injection of insulin. Within 24 hours, Leonard’s dangerously high blood glucose levels dropped to near-normal levels. 

Due to Banting's discovery of insulin, millions of people across the world were able to extend their lives by decades. In 1923,  Sir Fredrick Grant Banting (Canada) and John James Rickard Macleod (Canada) were awarded the Nobel Prize for 1923 in Physiology/Medicine, for the discovery of inulin.

  

 

Today, there is increased awareness about this metabolic deficiency/disorder. People now know that lifestyle changes including appropriate diet control and exercise regimen hold the key to diabetes management besides the medicines, if any, prescribed by doctors. 

While Type-2 diabetics can manage the disorder by strict diet control and/or intake of medicines, Type-1 category people depend on Insulin, both as prescribed by the doctor.

DOs and DON'Ts

Yes, for many, insulin is the lifeline;

It should be in the frontline;

You can’t afford to recline;

Follow the discipline!

 

Take it with a timeline;

Never do the mistake to decline;

Shun breaching the outline;

Follow the practice both online and offline!

 

It’s an important guideline;

Don’t toe a hardline;

Join the beeline;

Avoid the sideline!

 

Keep away from the rush of adrenaline;

That’s the punchline;

Never cross the baseline;

And, be a straight-line;

 

 

(R.SAMPATH)

19/6/2023