Name:

William Banting

Date of birth:

December 1796

Hometown:

Kensingto, London

Pioneering:

Low carb understanding

William Banting is known for the being the first person to promote the benefits of a

low-carb diet

, which was originally referred to as the “Banting diet”.

Almost 150 years after his renowned booklet ‘

Letter on Corpulance, Addressed to the Public

’ was published in 1863, the Banting diet has been backed up by several clinical trials as being safe and effective for weight loss, and it is now finally being acknowledged as a beneficial diet for people with diabetes.

Low-carb origins

Banting was not a scientist. In fact, he was a highly skilful carpenter and notable undertaker to the rich and famous, including King George III in 1820.

In his thirties, Banting started to become overweight, and was told by a surgeon to do more

exercise

Banting found, though, that this just increased his appetite.

He tried a variety of weight loss options such as the

starvation diet

and bathing in spa waters, but he eventually wound up in hospital for his weight.

By 1862, aged 65, Banting weighed 92 kg (202 lbs or 14st 6 lbs) and was only 165cm (5 ft 5 inches) tall, giving him a BMI of over 33 kg/m2. At the point of giving up on his weight loss, he also had an umbilical rupture, his sight was failing and he was becoming increasingly deaf.

But then Banting met Dr William Harvey, an ear, nose and throat specialist. It turned out that Harvey had been attending lectures in Paris by Claude Bernard on the liver, which led Harvey to think that food elements play a significant role in diabetes.

Harvey was as interested in Banting’s

obesity

as much as his hearing loss and he instructed him to give up bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer and potatoes – foods that all contained starch and sugar.

Five months later, Banting was down to 184 lbs and, by the following August, 156 lbs. Moreover, his hearing had returned, his sight had improved and he was more agile.

Open letter

Documenting his progress, Banting wrote an open letter in the form of a personal testimonial called Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the Public.

He didn’t charge anything for the first two editions of his self-published book – he had printed 1,000 copies of the first edition and 1,500 of the second, and hoped it would benefit working-class people with ailments who didn’t have the time to convalesce following hospital treatment.

Banting detailed his new diet, which entailed four meals a day, consisting of meat, fruits, greens and dry wine, while removing all sugar, saccharine and starch.

The book was so popular that he sold the third edition to the general public, but the scientific community deemed Banting’s work “unscientific” as it lacked a convincing theory about how the diet worked.

Banting remained at a normal weight and lived comfortably until his death in 1878, aged 81, but it would be another 50 years before studies investigating his diet demonstrated scientific evidence of its efficacy.

Clinical trials

In 1928, one of the first dietary clinical trials conducted by Dr Vilhjalmur Stefansson and Dr Karsten Anderson showed that participants felt better and had lower cholesterol when eating a carbohydrate-restricted diet.

And since then, despite the

erroneous introduction of low-fat guidelines in the 1980s

, research has continued to back the low-carb diet, with

Dr David Unwin’s pioneering studies

into the diet leading to staggering results.

By introducing his patients to a low-carb diet, Dr Unwin managed to save £42,000 in deprescription costs alone. The

Low Carb Program

and Dr Unwin’s work is all built on Banting’s original research, and the low-carb diet is finally, almost 150 years after Banting died, starting to become accepted in mainstream science as a healthy and effective diet for people with diabetes.

Name:

Elizabeth Hughes Gossett

Date of birth:

August 19, 1907

Hometown:

Albany, New York, United States

Diabetes Type:

Type 1

Elizabeth Hughes Gossett was amongst the first people to receive insulin injections to treat

type 1 diabetes

, which at the time was an experimental treatment.

She received an estimated 42,000 insulin shots throughout her life,

according to the New York Times

, but lived until 1981. She died at the age of 74.

Making contact

Gossett was 11 when she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes in 1919. That she had survived until the age of 14 was surprising to many, but her health was deteriorating.

It cannot be said with certainty which type of diabetes Gossett had, but it is possible that she had

MODY

rather than type 1 diabetes. MODY is a genetic form of diabetes which, like type 1 diabetes, is often diagnosed in children, but was not as well known within Elizabeth’s lifetime as it is today.

Once Gossett’s mother, Antoinette Carter Hughes, heard that

insulin

had been isolated in Canada, she contacted

Dr Frederick Banting

in Toronto. Eventually, Elizabeth was invited to Banting’s lab and she received insulin shots.

Her health improved so significantly that she was able to return to school in 1923, later graduating from Barnard College in 1929.

Legacy

Before she died, Gossett removed all references to her diabetes from her father’s papers. She sometimes even denied that had she been ill as a child.

This is testament to the effectiveness of insulin that following her first treatment, when life expectancy for diabetes was less than a year and was hard to hide from others, she was able to live her life as she wanted.

In 1979 Gossett received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from New York Law School. The annual Hughes-Gossett Awards, which were named in her honour, continue to be awarded to the best student paper on the court’s history.

Gossett died on April 21, 1981.

Name:

Carl Ronald Kahn

Date of birth:

January 14, 1944

Hometown:

Louisville, Kentucky, United States

Pioneering:

Insulin receptors and insulin sensitivity

C. Ronald Kah, M.D. has spent most of his career investigating insulin receptors and the role of insulin sensitivity in diabetes and obesity.

Kahn is currently the Chief Academic Officer and Head of Joslin’s Section on Integrative Physiology and Metabolism at the Joslin Diabetes Centre.

Education and research

Kahn was educated at the University of Louisville and Washington University. He later served at the diabetes branch of the National Institute of Health as a Clinical Associate in Endocrinology.

Kahn investigated how

insulin

affects cells, and why specific cells develop insulin resistance, a primary cause of

type 2 diabetes
.

In 1981, Kahn’s research led him to become the Research Director of Josli, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School in 1984.

Kahn was the first to proclaim how important the role of insulin action is in the brain, and how fat cells can increase the risk of metabolic disease.

In 1986, he was awarded the Mary K. Iacocca Professorship.

Joslin presidency

Kahn became Joslin’s president from 2000-2007. His team now investigate genes and proteins in relation to

obesity

, diabetes and other insulin-resistant states.

His research helped explain how genes and the environment affect type 2 diabetes, and has led to him receiving a plethora of scientific awards.

In his current role as Chief Academic Officer, Kahn trains roughly 150 doctors and doctoral fellows a year. His research continues to seek new treatment targets for diabetes.

Name:

Dr. Robert ‘Robin’ Daniel Lawrence

Date of birth:

November 18, 1892

Hometown:

Aberdee, Scotland

Diabetes Type:

Type 1

Dr. Robert Daniel Lawrence was the British equivalent of

Dr. Joslin

, who dedicated his life to diabetes after developing type 1 during a botched mastoid operation.

Lawrence was among the first to receive insulin treatment, which led him to research how insulin and reduced carbohydrate intake could prolong the lives of people with diabetes.

His book, The Diabetic Life, was easy to read and set achievable targets – a 17th edition was released in 1965.

His three-pronged approach of

carb counting

, diet management and regular exercise shaped modern diabetes management as we know it.

In 1932, Lawrence established the Department of Diabetes at King’s College Hospital, while he also co-founded The Diabetic Association (now Diabetes UK), where he was chairman until 1961.

• Read more about
  
  Dr. Robert Daniel Lawrence here
  

Name:

John James Rickard Macleod

Date of birth:

September 6, 1876

Hometown:

Clunie, Perthshire, Scotland

Pioneering:

Co-discovery of insulin

John James Rickard Macleod was a Scottish physiologist who shared the 1923 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with

Frederick Banting.

He is known for being a pioneer in the discovery of

insulin,

and it was in his laboratory at the University of Toronto that Banting and

Charles Best

succeeded in isolating and preparing insulin for mass use.

Early career

Macleod’s early education was in Aberdee, where he studied medicine at the Marischal College of the University of Aberdeen. He moved to the United States in 1903 to become a Professor of Physiology at the Western Reserve University at Cleveland, Ohio.

In 1918, Macleod was elected Professor of Physiology at the University of Toronto, Canada. He served as Director of the Physiological Laboratory and Associate Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and it was during his time in Toronto that he met Banting and Best.

MacLeod was director of the laboratory Banting and Best worked in. After being awarded the Nobel Prize, Banting and MacLeod decided to share the prize with the entire team who weren’t recognised by the Nobel committee.

Carbohydrate metabolism

MacLeod was also renowned for his work on carbohydrate

metabolism,

especially in diabetes. He had 37 papers published on carbohydrate metabolism and 12 papers on experimentally produced glycosuria (when excess glucose is removed from the blood by the kidneys and excreted via the urine).

He returned to Scotland in 1928 to become Professor of Physiology and later Dean of the University of Aberdeen Medical Faculty. MacLeod decided to stop working on insulin, and went on to prove that the central nervous system plays an important role in maintaining carbohydrate metabolism balance.

He remained active as a teacher, researcher and author of 11 books, including

Practical Physiology

(1902) and

Physiology and Biochemistry in Modern Medicine

(1918).

MacLeod died in 1935 in Aberdeen.

Name:

Oskar Minkowski

Date of birth:

January 13, 1858

Hometown:

Aleksotas, now in Lithuania

Pioneering:

Pancreatic diabetes

Oskar Minkowksi is known for his discovery of

pancreatic diabetes

He was nominated for the Nobel Prize six times during his career.

Minkowski studied at the University of Konigsberg before becoming a professor in Strasburg in 1888.

Later that year, Minkowski discovered a library journal in which Joseph von Mering asserted that pancreatic enzymes were required to break down fatty acids in the gut.

According to physiologist Claude Bernard, pancreatectomy – which would be the best way of establishing this assertion – would be impossible, but Minkowski proceeded to conduct the procedure in dogs.

Von Mering acted as Minkowski’s assistant for the procedure, and after Minkowski made the connection between

polyuria

and diabetes, he tested the urine of the animals for glucose.

The

high glucose levels

marked the discovery of pancreatic diabetes.

Minkowski later went on to chair the German Association of Internal Medicine and became one of Europe’s leading diabetologists.
Since 1966, the Minkowski Prize for outstanding contribution to the advancement of knowledge in the field of diabetes mellitus has been awarded by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.

Name:

Nicolae Paulescu

Date of birth:

October 30, 1869

Hometown:

Bucharest, Romania

Nicolae Paulescu was a Romanian scientist who claimed to have been the first person to discover insulin, which he called pancreine.

When

Frederick Banting

and

John James Rikard Macleod

were awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine for creating usable insulin, Paulescu wrote to the Nobel Prize committee claiming that he had discovered and used

insulin

first.

His claims were rejected, but thanks to a British professor called Ian Murray Paulescu’s achievements are now recognised as being significant in the

history of insulin

Medical training

Paulescu was born in Bucharest in 1869.

He became fascinated with physics and chemistry as he grew up and, upon graduating from the Mihai Viteazul High School in Bucharest in 1888, moved to Paris and enrolled in medical school.

Paulescu graduated with a Doctor of Medicine degree and was soon appointed assistant surgeon at the Notre-Dame du Perpétuel-Secours Hospital in 1897.

Three years later he returned to Romania where he served as Head of the Physiology Department of the University of Bucharest Medical School.

He remained in this position until his death in 1931

Pancreine research

In 1916, Paulescu developed an aqueous (watery) pancreatic extract which, when injected into a dog with diabetes, had a normalising effect on its

blood sugar levels

Paulescu’s pancreine was an extract of bovine pancreas in salted water, purified with hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide.

Shortly after, Paulescu was called to service in the Romanian Army during World War I, returning in 1921.

He then wrote an extensive whitepaper about the effect of the extract, titled ‘Research on the role of the pancreas in food assimilation’, which was published in August 1921.

Paulescu secured the patent rights for his method of manufacturing pancreine on April 10 1922 by the Romanian Ministry of Industry and Trade – patent no. 6254.

Nobel Prize debate

By the time Banting and

Charles Best

had isolated insulin in February 1922, which was successfully administered in a human patient for the first time, Paulescu was awaiting confirmation of his patent.

So when Banting and Macleod were awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923, Paulescu wrote to the Nobel committee claiming priority. But his claims were rejected.

In 1971, Roif Luft was president of the International Diabetes Federation and chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee for Physiology and Medicine. He highlighted that, in their 1922 paper published in the Journal of Laboratory and Clinical Medicine, Banting and Best misinterpreted Paulescu’s research, writing: “He [Paulescu] states that injections into peripheral veins produce no effect and his experiments show that second injections do not produce such marked effect as the first.”

This turned out to be erroneous; in 1969 Best apologised in a letter to Professor Ion Pavel, writing: ”I would like to state how sorry I am for this unfortunate error and I trust that your efforts to honour Professor Paulescu will be rewarded with great success.”

Luft stated that the Nobel Prize Committee had made a mistake in not crediting Paulescu’s discovery. He said:

“One fact remains, namely that the earlier discovery made by Paulescu was misinterpreted by Banting and Best for reasons which we cannot know anything about today … In my opinio, the [Nobel] prize should—without any doubt—have been shared between Paulescu, Banting and Best.”

Recognition

Fifty years after Paulescu’s paper was published, Prof Murray, a professor of physiology at the Anderson College of Medicine in Glasgow, wrote an article recognising Paulescu’s achievement.

In a 1971 issue of the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Murray wrote:

“Insufficient recognition has been given to Paulescu, the distinguished Romanian scientist, who at the time when the Toronto team were commencing their research had already succeeded in extracting the antidiabetic hormone of the pancreas and proving its efficacy in reducing the

hyperglycemia

in diabetic dogs.”

In 1993, the Institute of Diabetes, Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases in Bucharest was named in Paulescu’s honour, and he was given a stamp of honour which was issued by Romania in 1994.

Name:

Eva Saxl

Date of birth:

1921

Hometown:

Prague, Czechoslovakia

Diabetes Type:

Type 1

In 1940, 19-year-old Eva Saxl fled Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia with her husband, Victor.

They settled in Shanghai the same year Eva was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

She began insulin therapy after collapsing at the dinner table.

When insulin ran out

As Japanese occupation intensified, pharmacies closed and legal insulin supplies vanished.

After a friend died from contaminated black-market insulin, Eva refused that route. Instead, the couple found “Beckman’s Internal Medicine,” read how Banting and Best had extracted insulin, and decided to try.

Making insulin from scratch

Money and materials were scarce. Eva and Victor knitted stockings to fund water-buffalo pancreases, borrowed a small lab, and produced a brown insulin extract.

They tested it on rabbits, then accepting the risks of contamination and unknown potency, Eva tested it on herself. It worked.

A clinic for their community

Victor took the first vial to a nearby hospital and treated two diabetics who were close to death; both survived.

The Saxls then set up a clinic, rationing about 16 units per person per day – enough to keep roughly 400 people with diabetes in the Shanghai ghetto alive.

Rather than charge, they asked for donations to support the man who had lent them the lab.

Liberation and public advocacy

After American forces liberated their Jewish ghetto, the Saxls received clear insulin to distribute.

They later moved to New York, where their work drew national attention: President Eisenhower invited them to the White House, a Hollywood documentary told their story, and Eva became a spokeswoman for the American Diabetes Association – helping to challenge the stigma surrounding diabetes in the 1940s and 1950s.

Later years and legacy

After Victor died in 1968, Eva moved to Santiago, Chile to join her brother and worked to secure medicines for underprivileged children. She died in 2002.

• Read more about Eva Saxl here

Name:

Ernest Sterzer

Date of birth:

April 28, 1925

Hometown:

Vienna, Austria

Diabetes Type:

Type 1

Ernest Sterzer is the only reported case of somebody with type 1 diabetes surviving the Holocaust in World War II.

Sterzer, who was born in Vienna, Austria, first arrived at the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia in October 1942.

Sterzer had to steal bread from a bakery to trade for

insulin

to keep him alive for two years.

Sterzer later moved to three different camps: Auschwitz, Heinkel Werke and Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen. During the travel, he went for days without insulin, and eventually developed complications including a mastoid and paralysis of the gum sail.

Sterzer eventually escaped during a death march, finding two American soldiers who provided him with medical treatment. Upon returning to Vienna, no insulin was available, with the concentration camps among the only places insulin would have been accessible to Sterzer.

• Read more about
  
  Ernest Sterzer here
  

Name:

Leonard Thompson

Date of birth:

1908

Hometown:

Unknown

Diabetes Type:

Type 1

Pioneering:

First person to receive insulin injection

On January 11 1922, Leonard Thompson became the first patient with diabetes to receive

insulin

injections. Having been close to death, Leonard lived for another 13 years.

Insulin was discovered by

Frederick Banting

and

Charles Best

in early 1922, and at the time of his first injections, Leonard, who was diagnosed three years previously, had been admitted to Toronto General Hospital.

He was drifting in and out of a diabetic coma and weighed only 65 pounds. Leonard’s father agreed that his son should be the first to test insulin, which had never been tried on another human being.

After an impure form of insulin failed to improve Leonard’s condition initially, a purer version restored his

blood glucose levels

back to normal and his symptoms began to disappear.

When Leonard was aged 27, 13 years after his first insulin injections, he died of pneumonia, which was thought to be a complication of his diabetes.

Name:

Priscilla White

Date of birth:

March 17, 1900

Hometown:

Bosto, Massachusetts

Pioneering:

Research

Priscilla White pioneered research into diabetic woman during pregnancy, which led to the White Classification being used to assess diabetes in pregnancy.

The classification was based on age at onset of diabetes, duration of disease and the presence of atherosclerotic vascular disease and renal complications.

This is still used today to distinguish between

gestational diabetes

and existing diabetes before pregnancy.

White was hired by

Dr. Elliot Proctor Joslin

to work at his clinic in 1924, where she was made responsible for supervising the clinic’s pregnant women and children with diabetes.

In 1932, White published Diabetes in Childhood and Adolescence, her first major contribution to diabetes literature.

It was the White Classification that established her position in diabetes history, though.

The classification allowed a prediction to be made about the course of a

pregnant patients with diabetes

, and the likelihood of the newborn infant surviving. By the time White retired, the fetal survival rate for diabetic woman at the Joslin Clinic had risen to 97 per cent from 54 per cent.

In 1960, White became the first women given the

Banting

Medal, the highest scientific award of the American Diabetes Association.

Name:

Elliott Proctor Joslin

Date of birth:

June 6, 1869

Hometown:

Oxford, Massachusetts, USA

Diabetes Type:

Type 1

Dr. Elliot Proctor Joslin’s approach to diabetes treatment was unique in the early 1900s, as he focused on giving patients responsibility for their own care.

Joslin helped his mother – who had been diagnosed with diabetes in 1899 – to live 10 years after her diagnosis through a combination of

meal planning

,

exercise

and food management.

The life expectancy for diabetes had previously been just one year.

Joslin and his team developed the first hospital blood glucose monitoring system in 1940 and in 1965 he moved his practice into what is now known as the Joslin Diabetes Centre. This remains a leading worldwide clinic of diabetes, focusing on patient education and diabetes research.

In 1993, Joslin’s belief that dedicated control was necessary in treating diabetes was confirmed by the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial.

Read more about

Dr. Elliot Proctor Joslin here

Name:

Frederick Madison Allen

Date of birth:

March 16, 1879

Hometown:

Des Moines, Iowa

Pioneering:

Starvation diet

Frederick Madison Allen is synonymous with the ‘starvation diet’, which he devised before the discovery of insulin to extend the lives of diabetes patients.

Alle, a physician, theorised that restricted calorie intake and engaging in regular exercise would prolong the life of insulin-producing

beta cells

Among those who supported Allen’s work was

Dr. Elliot Proctor Joslin

, but Allen also had his critics who claimed that some of his patients died of starvation rather than diabetes.

Early research

Alle, who was born in Iowa, studied medicine at the University of California. He attended Harvard Medical School between 1909 and 1912 and thanks to his father’s financing, published Studies Concerning Glycosuria and Diabetes in 1913.

The 1,179-page book provided an exhaustive review of diabetes, containing his research on animals, where he concluded that

hyperglycemia

did not cause lowered resistance to infection or proteinuria.

Allen also reported that on a

low-carbohydrate diet

– or an Eskimo diet, as he called it – dogs with diabetes remained relatively well. Allen put forward that people with diabetes should reduce their food intake until there was no glucose left in patient’s urine. This is known as glycosuria.

Human treatment

Allen was offered a junior position at the Rockefeller Institute in 1914, where he was able to test on human diabetes patients. Alongside a starvation diet, Allen insisted his patients receive plenty of exercise.

As some patients died from starvation, critics viewed his treatment as cruel, but Allen argued that on his diet, life was tolerable for patients.

In 1919, Allen published Total Dietary Regulation in the Treatment of Diabetes, which contained records of 76 of his patients who were treated with dietary changes.

Two years later, the British Medical Journal said of the book: “Allen’s case records have real practical value. The reader can match them with cases from his own experience, and he can see exactly what was done and note the result.”

Allen left Rockefeller in 1919 and set up the Psychiatric Institute, New York. The centre was designed to focus entirely on diabetes research, with payment from patients dependent on what treatment they wanted to receive. Even before insulin therapy, his centre achieved great success in extending patients’ lives.

Allen worked seven-day weeks for most of his life. After his centre went bankrupt in 1936, he pursued further research into hypertension and cancer. Allen died in Maine on 14 April 1957.

Name:

Frederick Grant Banting

Date of birth:

November 14, 1891

Hometown:

Allisto, Ontario, Canada

Pioneering:

Insulin treatment

Nobel Prize winner Frederick Banting developed the idea of insulin into a practical treatment on humans, marking one of the biggest medical discoveries of the 20th century.

Alongside Charles Best, Banting chose to make

insulin

available to diabetes patients without charge, which led to insulin therapy and production spreading across the world.

Discovery of insulin

Banting was educated at the University of Toronto, where he first studied divinity, but transferred to medicine shortly after.

After being injured serving in the First World War – he was awarded the Military Cross from heroism under fire – he became fascinated with diabetes.

Building on existing research that reported a hormone named insulin controlled the metabolism of sugar, Banting investigated why a lack of it led to increased sugar in the blood and urine.

Previous attempts to insert patients with pancreatic extracts or a fresh pancreas failed.

Banting’s research at the University of Toronto led him to create a pancreatic extract, which after weeks of experimentation, resulted in thousands of

islet cells

being left behind. Extracts of insulin were then taken from these islets.

Insulin was discovered by Frederick Banting, Charles H Best and JJR Macleod at the University of Toronto in 1921.

First, the insulin was tested on dogs, which regulated their blood glucose levels. Later in 1922, it was tested on

Leonard Thompson,

the first human being to be administered with insulin. The first dose failed, as it was too impure, but a second dose purified by

James B. Collip,

proved successful.

Banting further developed the insulin alongside laboratory director John MacLeod, and the two of them were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine in 1923.

They shared the prize money with their entire team, who were not recognised by the Nobel committee.

Diabetes legacy

Banting later investigated problems from silicosis and cancer, before serving in the British and North American services during the Second World War. In 1941, he was killed in an air crash during a mission.

In 1989, the Queen Mother lit a flame of hope in Banting’s honour, commemorating all the people who died from diabetes.

The flame will only be extinguished when a

cure for diabetes

is found.

Name:

Richard K. Bernstein

Date of birth:

June 17, 1934

Hometown:

New York City, New York, United States

Dr Richard Bernstein broke new ground in the management of type 1 diabetes when he discovered that keeping excellent control of

blood glucose levels

– through combining a low carb diet with insulin therapy – could make diabetic complications go away.

‘An ordinary diabetic’

Bernstein was diagnosed with

type 1 diabetes

in 1946 at the age of 12. In his book Diabetes Solutio, he referred to himself as “an ordinary diabetic”, but by the time he turned 30, he was questioning the advice given by the American Diabetes Association (ADA) guidelines.

In 1969, Bernstein was able to obtain one of the first

blood glucose meters

, which was originally intended for hospital staff to distinguish a diabetes patient from someone who had been drinking heavily.

Bernstein began testing his blood sugar multiple times a day, and started conducting his own research. He found he could normalise his levels through diet, exercise and medication. Within a year, he had refined his

insulin

dosages to the point that his blood sugar levels were within a normal range for most of the day.

Law of small numbers

One of Dr Bernstein’s most enduring finding is his ‘law of small numbers’ which states that taking smaller doses of insulin will result in much less error and therefore a much lower risk of severe highs or lows occurring.

Medical community

When the medical community rejected his findings, Bernstei, at the age of 45, decided to leave his career in engineering and study at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 1983 he opened his own medical practice.

Diabetes Solutio, which was released in 1997, addressed his findings, where he reported that normalising blood sugar levels can prevent diabetes-related complications, or make them go away.

Bernstein had to battle established theories about diabetes treatment, such as the diet guidelines of eating high-carb, low-fat. His

low-carbohydrate

solution to keeping blood glucose levels has helped patients of all ages, but he admits: “Many in the field of diabetes care still do not accept it!”

Bernstein is now 81 years old. He attributes his surpassing of the average life expectancy for type 1 diabetes to a low-carb diet and keeping good glycemic control.

Public perception

Many members of the diabetes patient community have cited a

debt to Richard Bernstein

in being able to finally take control of their diabetes after years of struggling.

Bernstein’s approach is regarded as strict and whilst some patients follow his advice very closely, others have chosen to adopt his general approach without following the advice to the letter.

Many people that have followed his advice, even in part, have reported very good blood glucose control and greater well-being.

Name:

George F Cahill Jr.

Date of birth:

July 7, 1927

Hometown:

Manhatta, New York

Pioneering:

Starvation diet and metabolism

Dr. George F. Cahill Jr. was a diabetes expert who investigated how the
starvation diet
affected obesity and diabetes.

He began his education at Yale University at the age of 16, before graduating medical school at Columbia  College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1953.

Cahill studied glucose metabolism, and joined the Joslin Diabetes Centre in 1962 as research director.

During this period, Cahill tracked the blood chemistry of

obese patients

being treated with total starvation for up to six weeks.

He discovered that the liver starts breaking down protein to make glucose for the brain within the first few days without food. According to Dr. Joseph Avruch, a professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Cahill’s studies provided new insights into how starvation and

insulin

regulated the metabolism.

Cahill went on to develop high-energy food bars for the military as emergency rations. He later became the Professor of Medicine at Harvard University, where he taught until 1990.

During his time teaching, his class at Harvard had to be moved to an auditorium that seated over 400 people, as the original 100-seat room did not cater to the demand.

Before his death in 2012, the George Cahill, MD, Scholarship Fund was set up at Joslin to continue Cahill’s tradition of mentoring students ahead of their careers in

diabetes research

Name:

James Bertram Collip

Date of birth:

November 20, 1892

Hometown:

Belleville, Canada

Pioneering:

Insulin dosage

James Collip was a biochemist who proved vital in producing the first insulin dose that was suitable for use on humans.

In 1921, Collip took a sabbatical from the University of Alberta and worked with

Frederick Banting

and

Charles Best

at the University of Toronto. He had previously received his PhD in biochemistry in 1916.

Banting and Best had discovered

insulin

, but the extract was raw and after being administered to Leonard Thompson, the first human to receive it, no changes were seen in his diabetic condition.

Collip purified this extract within two weeks and it was again administered to Thompson. This time, the insulin led to Thompson’s

blood glucose levels

stabilising, which saved his life.

Collip received a quarter of the prize money awarded to Banting as part of the Nobel Prize in 1923, and despite enduring many arguments with Banting during the

discovery of insulin

, the two became good friends in the 1930s.

In 1928, Collip became the Professor of Biochemistry at McGill University, while he later served as the Dean of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario between 1947 and 1961.

Name:

Apollinaire Bouchardat

Date of birth:

July 23, 1809

Hometown:

L’Isle-sur-Serei, France

Pioneering:

Diabetology

Apollinaire Bouchardat is credited as being the founder of diabetology, helping to develop treatments for diabetes before insulin was created in 1922.

Bouchardat was endorsed by

Elliot Proctor Joslin

as being the first clinician to educate patients on living with diabetes.

He advocated the self-monitoring of urine glucose and importance of

exercise.

Diabetes treatments

Bouchardat’s medical studies began at his uncle’s pharmacy before he left for Paris at 19 to study medicine. After being nominated as Professor of Hygiene at the Faculté de medicine in 1833, he became chief pharmacist at the Hôtel-Dieu in 1835.

Bouchardat dedicated his research to diabetes, and studied urine glucose in patients. He recommended decreasing intake of starchy foods and sugar to reduce glycosuria – the excretion of glucose into the urine.

He was among the first to hypothesise that diabetes was located in the pancreas – and due to promising test results, encouraged patients to engage in physical exercise and self-test their own urine to detect glucose. To do this, he developed a procedure that patients could use.

Bouchardat was convinced that patients could be responsible for improving their health outcomes, despite the difficulties of making so many lifestyle changes. He observed that patients

lost weight

through this changes, which increased metabolic control – in response to this he created a regimen for obese people with diabetes.

Bouchardat published a number of textbooks on diabetes, but his most well-known work was “De la Glycosurie ou diabète sucré, son traitement hygénigue”, which proposed treatment based on patients’ way of life.

He went on to become the Chair of Hygiene at Faculté de medicine in the 1950s, while his portrait was featured in the sixth issue of the magazine Diabetes in 1952.

Bouchardat died on 7 April 1886.

He is buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Name:

Charles Herbert Best

Date of birth:

February 27, 1899

Hometown:

West Pembroke, Maine

Pioneering:

Carbohydrate metabolism

Alongside Frederick Banting, Charles Best discovered insulin in 1922 after becoming Banting’s assistant during the summer of 1921.

While

Banting

and J.J.R. MacLeod won the Nobel Prize in 1923, Banting shared the prize money with Best and the rest of his team that were responsible for

insulin

being developed.

Moving to Toronto

Born in Maine, Best later moved to Toronto in 1915, where he studied at the University of Toronto.

In 1921, he completed his degree in physiology and biochemistry.

He became a summer research assistant at the university, and was assigned by MacLeod to work with Banting, who was experimenting on pancreatic secretions in diabetes.

Best handled chemical tests to measure blood glucose levels while working with Banting on extracting the pancreases of

dogs,

who survived with insulin injections.

They began clinical trials on humans in 1922, which led to Leonard Thompson becoming the first person to receive insulin injections, which led to his blood sugar levels normalising.

Medical degree

Best obtained his medical degree and succeeded MacLeod as Professor of Physiology in 1929. After the death of Banting in 1941, he then took over as Director of the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research.

Best retired in 1965, after spending much of his career investigating

carbohydrate

metabolism. He died on March 31, 1978.

The following people have achieved extraordinary things. They may not all be famous – at least, not as famous as they should be – but their stories are towering achievements in the field of diabetes.

Some have made breakthroughs in scientific research, others have inspired through their extraordinary stories; all have changed the way we think about diabetes.

• 
  Frederick Banting
  
  – Nobel Prize winner who co-discovered insulin and was the first person to use insulin on humans
• 
  William Banting
  
  – pioneer of the low carb approach to type 2 diabetes
• 
  Charles Best
  
  – Banting’s assistant and one of the co-discoverer of insulin
• 
  Leonard Thompson
  
  – first person to receive an insulin injection
• 
  Eva Saxl
  
  – who made her own insulin during WW2
• 
  Ernest Sterzer
  
  – only reported case of somebody with type 1 diabetes surviving the Holocaust
• 
  Dr Elliott Joslin
  
  – a pioneer in diabetes treatment
• 
  Dr Robert Lawrence
  
  – founder of the British Diabetic Association
• 
  Frederick Madison Allen
  
  – devised the starvation diet, before insulin was isolated
• 
  C Ronald Kahn
  
  – pioneered research into insulin receptors and insulin sensitivity
• 
  Apollinaire Bouchardat
  
  – founder of diabetology
• 
  James Collip
  
  – worked with Banting and Best, vital in producing the first insulin dose for use on humans
• 
  Oskar Minkowski
  
  – known for his discovery of pancreatic diabetes
• 
  George F Cahill Jr.
  
  – investigated how the starvation diet affected obesity and diabetes
• 
  Priscilla White
  
  – pioneered research into diabetic woman during pregnancy