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Diabetes : A Very Old Disease

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Diabetes one of the most well-known diseases is a metabolic disease in which the body cannot produce insulin causing elevated levels of glucose in the blood. Insulin is a hormone that is very influential in the way the body changes food into energy, and is very important when it comes to treating or controlling the disease. Diabetes consists of two types, Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes. One is more lethal than the other, while the other requires less treatments of insulin. Diabetes is a very complex topic, it ranges from two types and its origins go way back in time. It is a disease that throughout time there have been different ways to diagnose it and have also been different ways to treat it. Since many other conditions are also related to …show more content…

Fun fact, according to this same book, “one ancient way to diagnose diabetes was to pour urine down an anthill. If the ants swarmed over the anthill, which obviously contained sugar, and the patient was ruled to have diabetes” (42). In the 2nd century A.D., Greek physician Aretaeus was the person who named the disease “diabetes”. Aretaeus described Diabetes as, “a dreadful affliction, not very frequent among men, being a melting down of the flesh and limbs into urine. The patients never stop making water and the flow is incessant, like the opening of aqueducts. Life is short, unpleasant painful, thirst unquenchable, drinking excessive, and disproportionate to the large quantity of urine is passed… the patients are affected by nausea, restlessness and burning thirst, and within a short time they expire” (44). Early physicians were able to identify signs of diabetes, but weren’t able to find a way to properly treat it. Medieval physicians also thought that people living in hot climates would more likely get diabetes, which is wrong. Then during the 16th century Swiss Physician Paracelsus, came up with an idea that diabetes was cause by a salt imbalance. However, was proven wrong by 17th century scientist Thomas Willis, who proved that sugar caused diabetes not salt. To determine this he tasted some of his diabetic patient’s urine and noticed that it was sweet instead of salty. Then later on in

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