Original title: The Discovery of Insulin: An Important Milestone in the History of Medicine
Diabetes has been described in ancient texts, but for a long time doctors lacked insulin as a treatment. This review traces the discoveries, repeated discoveries, setbacks, and disputes that led to insulin therapy. Its introduction marked the end of what the review calls the “pre-insulin eraThe period before insulin was introduced as a treatment for diabetes..” The review also covers newer work on tailoring insulin therapy to individual people.
Imagine a town where people have a serious illness, but the available treatments do not help enough. Doctors try different paths, make mistakes, and sometimes return to an idea that was overlooked. In this paper, that long search maps to the people and events leading to insulin, while the change in treatment maps to the new era it began.
For people with diabetes, insulin transformed treatment and prognosis, opening the way to further clinical advances. The review also connects that history to personalized insulin therapy today.
The abstract describes a broad historical review but gives no detailed account of its sources or selection methods. It does not provide specific evidence or outcomes for personalized insulin therapy, nor does it compare particular treatments.
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The Discovery of Insulin: An Important Milestone in the History of Medicine — Ignazio Vecchio, Cristina Tornali, Nicola Luigi Bragazzi et al. — Frontiers in Endocrinology — doi:10.3389/fendo.2018.00613
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.