The Idea- The Insulin Theory
During this time, however, Banting became interested in the disease diabetes, which not much was known about at the time. Through the works of Naunyn, Minkowski, Opie and Schafer he knew that diabetes was when the pancreas was unable to produce or execute a hormone that regulated blood sugar, however there was no known cure, with a diagnosis of the disease being a literal death sentence. The only attempts thus far had been to perform pancreas transplants which all failed do to the death of the enzymes in the procedure. Banting’s idea, therefore, was to be able to extract insulin from the pancreas and be able to inject it into patients to replace the lack of the hormone that the pancreas couldn’t produce.
|