99 Years Ago Today

Written January 11, 2021

99 years ago today the first shot of insulin was given to a 14 year old patient near death. Due to the impurity of the extract he had a severe allergic reaction. The scientists worked day and night to improve the purity and on Jan 23, 1922 a glucose normalizing shot of insulin was given to the patient.

A diabetes diagnosis was a death sentence before the insulin extract was developed. Days, weeks and at best the children were given a month or two to live. It was a slow starvation death as insulin is required to live. It has many jobs but primarily it works as a door opener for your cells to receive fuel to live. Our bodies are amazing in that they can adapt to different macronutrient sources, fat, protein, or carbohydrates as well as a combo of each. It is for this reason people can survive on whale blubber or rice or red meat as a sole source of nutrients. Yet insulin, even minimal amounts, is required for any of these nutrients to metabolize. You HAVE to have insulin to live.

Prior to insulin, these children were put on a gross diet of fat. This forced the cells to adapt to using a byproduct of fat metabolism as a fuel source, called a ketone. The hope being the children’s pancreas could produce minimal amounts of insulin to meet life sustaining metabolic needs. This would prove effective for some patients, elongating the starvation window to perhaps months.

This gross fat based diet was also used for epileptic patients. Doctors found when the brain used ketones as a fuel source, patients had less frequent and less severe seizures.

It’s unfortunate development of less effective pharmaceutical drugs in the 50s and 60s removed this dietary therapy for patients and the incredible heroic story of one mother brought light to this which is portrayed in a 1997 Meryl Streep movie titled “First Do No Harm”. A must see.

99 years after the first insulin injection we are a country where the majority of people living in the USA and most developed countries do not have optimized insulin function, diabetes or not. You are sick if you don’t have enough and you are sick if you have too much. Insulin dysfunction plays a role in cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart issues, acne, weight gain, weight loss, energy, sleep, mood, pretty much most illnesses.

I’ll end this story with a dramatic visual. Read this paragraph and then close your eyes to imagine the scene.

In a ward of 50 beds, filled with comatose, dying children, their families grieving around them, waiting for the moment their child’s breath would cease - three doctors walk in and start injecting the children, one after the other, with insulin. Before they reach the last dying child the first few begin to come out of their comas and awaken to see their joyous families.

If you are looking for support to optimize your insulin function, DM me.