The 1920's: A Brief History Of Diabetes

Even though there were many important discoveries relating to insulin and diabetes, there still was no cure or treatment for it. Individuals diagnosed with this disease died shortly after diagnosis. In the early 1900’s, Frederick Allen – a leading diet therapist – invented a diet specifically for diabetic patients. He called it ‘the undernutrition approach’ where as his patients called it ‘the starvation diet.’ This diet allowed the diabetic patients an intake of 800-1000 calories per day for six days and fewer calories on the seventh day. It wasn’t ideal but the goal of this diet was to prolong the life of diabetic patients until hopefully a cure was discovered. (Turner, Novo Story of Insulin - Part 1, n.d.)

The 1920’s was a very important time in the history of Diabetes and insulin discovery and synthesis. In 1920, Frederick Banting returned from war. He was a struggling physician with a big dream = to solve the mystery that is Diabetes Mellitus. He had this idea: ‘’Ligate pancreatic ducts of dogs. Wait 6-8 weeks for degeneration. Remove the residue and extract.’’ However, he did not have the physical or financial resources to further explore the idea. (Harrison) He then returned to his alma mater, the University of Toronto, and requested the assistance of J.J.R. Macleod who was a world renowned physiologist. J.J.R Macleod
The problem was getting the alcohol level in the bovine/porcine insulin extract exactly right so that it would be pure enough and non-toxic for human consumption. They then decided to incorporate the help of James Collip who had a PhD in biochemistry. The arrangement was that Collip would work in his own lab to get the extract refined enough while Banting and Best worked together in their own lab to get the extract refined enough - the race to see who would solve it first was on. (Turner, Novo Story of Insulin - Part 2,