What did dogs teach humans about diabetes? - Duncan C. Ferguson

Diabetes mellitus has been a scourge
of the developed world

with an estimated 400,000,000 people
worldwide suffering from this disease,

and 50% more predicted
within twenty years.

It's early symptoms, which include
increased thirst and large volumes of urine,

were recognized as far back
as 1500 BCE in Egypt.

While the term "diabetes,"
meaning "to pass through,"

was first used in 250 BCE by
the Greek physician Apollonius of Memphis,

Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes,

associated respectively
with youth and obesity,

were identified as separate conditions

by Indian physicians
somewhere in the 5th century CE.

But despite the disease being known,
a diagnosis of diabetes in a human patient

would remain tantamount to a death sentence
until the early 20th century.

It's causes unknown.

What changed this dire situation was the
help of humanity's longtime animal partner:

canis lupup familiaris, domesticated
from grey wolves thousands of years ago.

In 1890, the Germany scientists Von Mering
and Minkowski

demonstrated that removing
a dog's pancreas

caused it to develop
all the signs of diabetes

thus establishing the organ's
central role in the disease.

But the exact mechanism by which this
occurred remained a mystery until 1920

when a young Canadian surgeon
named Frederick Banting

and his student, Charles Best, advanced
the finding of their German colleagues.

Working under Professor Macleod
at the University of Toronto,

they confirmed that the pancreas was
responsible for regulating blood glucose,

successfully treating diabetic dogs
by injecting them with an extract

they had prepared from pancreas tissue.

By 1922, the researchers working with
biochemist James Collip

were able to develop a similar extract
from beef pancreas

to first treat a
fourteen year old diabetic boy,

followed by six additional patients.

The manufacturing process for this extract,
now known as insulin,

was eventually turned over to
a pharmaceutical company

that makes different types of
injectable insulin to this day.

Banting and Macloud recieved

the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1923
for their discovery.

But Banting chose to share his
portion with Charles Best,

for his help in the initial
studies involing dogs.

But while medical experimentation
on animals remains controversial,

in this case at least, it was not just a
matter of exploiting dogs for human needs.

Dogs develop diabetes at the rate
of two cases per 1,000 dogs,

almost the same as that of
humans under twenty.

Most canine cases are of Type 1 diabetes,

similar to the type that
young children develop

following immune system
destruction of the pancreas,

And genetic studies have shown that

the dog disease has many
similar hallmarks of the human disease.

This has allowed veterinarians
to turn the tables,

successfully using insulin to treat diabetes
in man's best friend for over 60 years.

Many dog owners commit to
managing their dogs diabetes

with insulin injected twice daily,
regemented feedings,

and periodic blood measurements

using the same home testing
glucose monitors used by human patients.

And if the purifed pig insulin
commonly used for dogs

fails to work for a particular dog,

the vet may even turn to a
formulation of human insulin,

bringing the process full circle.

After all that dogs have done
for us throughout the ages,

including their role in a medical discovery
that has saved countless human lives,

using that same knowledge to help them
is the least we could do.