Saturday, January 2, 2010

The history of diabetes

Unlike conditions like aids autism and ADD, diabetes isn't a 'new' disease. You could be surprised to learn that Egyptian doctors, 3500 years back, were the 1st to see that folk with the condition we all know today as diabetes, habitually manifested the hallmark indication of frequent pissing, therefore marking the start of the history of diabetes. With the syndrome of frequent pissing, others noted that ants swarmed around an area where these folks had urinated.

Though diabetes, yet unnamed, was known to become an enfeebling condition, the doctors of the time were confused as to the cause and had no treatment. The history of diabetes took a long hiatus, with no progress made past this point for another 1500 years. At that point, the highly regarded Greek physician Galen, incorrectly concluded this condition came from the kidneys. By the year one thousand AD, this now famous condition was named : diabetes mellitus, so named due to the sweet personality of the pee of those people that were tormented with this condition. The history of diabetes, while virtually 2500 years old, was sporadic on facts and absent excellent treatments. Doctors of the time used aides to sample examples of the piss to pinpoint the degree of sweetness and therefore make a diagnosis. Apart from spotting diabetes as a health condition, no progress was made in deciding the cause or inventing treatments for diabetes. It wasn't till the 16th century that diabetes was announced, by Paracelsus, as a life-threatening disorder. Another 2 hundred years passed in the history of diabetes, with no new heavy findings.

Then, in the 1800s, a medically trustworthy test was created to gauge the quantity of sugar in the pee of patients, leading to a conclusive diagnosis. Treatments were nearly hit-or-miss, from huge treatments of sugar to just about jailing the patients to enforce a prescribed experimental diet. Doctors across Europe, across the 1800s, started paying more notice to the poser of diabetes. A couple of discovered that the pancreas appeared to be implicated. At the turn of the 19th century, a spotlight on diet produced maybe the first of the trend diets. Diabetics received advice to eat potatoes, oats, milk or rice.

Starving the patient was one of the most prescribed and radical treatments.

While patients was hoping these assorted injunctions by their doctors would produce a cure, there wasn't a single case that was relieved. Not till the discovery of insulin, in 1921, was there any heavy progress in the history of diabetes. Following experiments with insulin on animals, a young man was successfully treated with insulin. This marked a major turning point in the history of diabetes, with quick progress in both identifying and treating diabetes.

In the 1940s, scientists ultimately made the link between diabetes and eye and kidney problems. In the 30 years that followed, much progress was made in devices , for example home testing devices that authorized diabetic patients to exactly measure blood sugar levels. Oddly enough, it wasn't till 1975 that any excellence was made between diabetes types one and two.

In 1974, the US Congress created the nation's Diabetes Commission, whose mission was to coordinate research of diabetes with coaching programs for medical pros, with patient education. With state funding and research grants in a coordinated effort, it's now feasible to control diabetes with a spread of medicines that aid in avoiding or at least delay the commencement of problems. The history of diabetes has come a ways over the last 3500 years. With modern drugs and systematic research, hopefully this devastating condition may shortly be treatable.

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