Frederick Banting and Charles Best are credited with discovering insulin following experiments of removing the pancreas from dogs and then reinjecting the extracts. Leonard Thompson was 14 in 1922 when he was given the first ever injection of insulin. He had type 1 diabetes, weighed only 65lbs, slipping in and out of a diabetic coma before he received this new treatment. Before this diabetes was an incurable and fatal disease with sufferers often not living beyond childhood.
The pancreas is the organ that produces insulin and in type 1 diabetes, usually younger patients, it is thought to be an autoimmune disorder where the body develops antibodies to the cells that produce insulin. Type 2 diabetes usually comes on later in life and is associated with a sedentary lifestyle and obesity. It is thought that either the body cannot produce enough insulin or that the cells become resistant to the insulin that is produced.
Insulin helps to move glucose (sugar) from the blood stream, following eating, into the cells to provide one of the other essentials of life – nutrition. Too much insulin and the blood sugar level goes too low and the individual suffers a “hypo” which in extreme forms can cause unconsciousness.
Too little insulin for the blood glucose level, (or too much sugar in the diet) will lead to high blood sugar, and over time cause damage to many different parts of the body – heart, nerves, kidney, eyes, blood vessels.
People living with diabetes will know that much effort has to be spent in getting the diet correct, particularly in relation to exercise levels (increase exercise uses up glucose in the blood stream).
In our Christian life we feed on the word of God, the Holy Spirit helps to keep us “spiritually” healthy.
If we allow too little of God’s teaching in our lives we become spiritually “hypo” and if we let the harmful things in our life build up it can cause long-term damage – that disagreement turns to bitterness, prejudice turns to hatred, envy turns to sinful actions.
Prayer: Loving Father, help us to get the level right, to feed on the right things, and to remove those things in our lives that will cause harm to ourselves and to others. Amen