1 Here is a breakfast used in a test for diabetes. It in
cludes orange juice, bread, cereal with milk and sugar,
and coffee with sugar. If a urine analysis shows sugar
two hours after eating, a blood-sugar test is sug
gested. Early diagnosis is vital in controlling condition.
2 A diabetic diet usually minimizes the foods shown here.
Too much starch and sugar is provided by the bread,
potatoes, beans, ice cream, and sugar. The diabetic body
is unable to convert them to heat and energy as needed.
Here's why
gives better TOTAL results in
GEL3
Within a generation,
it has been reduced from
a deadly ravager to a controllable
disorder, and even greater
hope lies ahead.
. H I .-.1 I M It-Vi'M. :J 5 11
I f 1 I I I I I I I J I s
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I M
y iiacn Kyan
A portly, middle-aged Chicago at
torney stepped from his doctor's
office recently and nodded to his
wife, waiting anxiously in the reception
room. "It's what we suspected," he
said. "Diabetes."
After a moment's silence, he added,
"I wonder if I could have accepted the
news as calmly in the old days."
With these words, the Chicagoan ex
pressed intimate knowledge of a once
deadly ravager which, within his
memory, had been reduced to a difficult
but controllable disorder and may be
curbed even further in the near future.
Diabetes had developed in a paternal
uncle when the attorney was still a
youth. There were the usual symptoms
acute thirst and hunger, loss of
weight, drowsiness. The uncle's body
was failing to change sugary and
starchy foods into heat and energy, in
stead burdening the kidneys with a
destructive excess of sugar. The only
treatments then available were "starva
tion" diets and desperate "miracle"
cures. In a year, the uncle was dead.
A hereditary disorder, diabetes later
developed in another uncle. But it was
1934 then, and the pendulum had
started swinging toward a happier end
ing. Insulin,, discovered by Canadian
Arrlsvo 1TiA4n:n1.- DnMilw . 1 1
uvvhWAB x-icuuiiLiv, 4cui iui ciiiu. isiuiries
Best in 1921. had become a lifesavini?
. 0
part of diabetes treatment.
Only unmodified insulin was known,
U 3 :i . 1 -11 .
uvwcvci, anu 11 aciea so rapidly in
helping the bodv control its snear npprls
that the uncle required two or three
hypodermic injections a day. Research
had given him and other diabetics new
life; now it must give them a freer life.
By 1936 researchers had produced the
first slow-action insulin. For the uncle
it meant reducing his injections to one
a day. But diabetics vary in their in
sulin needs; some were sensitive to the
new insulin, others required doses with
faster reaction or greater intensity.
Through the years, three additional
varieties of insulin were discovered,
each tailored to specific needs of in
dividual patients. They now permit
diabetics like the Chicago attorney an
almost normal life, with minimum re
strictions on diet and use of the syringe.
""HE attorney has still another reason
for optimism. An even better
life may be offered him by a new
development which one expert describes
as "potentially the greatest find in dia
betic research in the last 36 years," or
since the discovery of insulin.
These high hopes are pinned on the
effectiveness of a small white pill.
UI 1
This is the paraphernalia diabetics use
to correct body's imbalance of insulin.
Tnlron i.a1Kr i mirtUt A .1 1 r
11, Aiijgub uu uie wont OI
insulin without the discomfort of a
hypodermic injection. Several such tab
lets previously reached the experimen
tal stage, but all failed. Now a distant
relative of germ-killing sulfa drugs has
renewed hope in an antidiabetic pill.
Initial trials indicate that the drug
tolbutamide, may help 50 to 75 percent
of our diabetic DODiilation. A "Fjirnroa-.
a MuiVvaii
discovery being tested by an American
pharmaceutical house, tolbutamide
1 t .1 . . . . .
snows none 01 me narmtul side effects
of previous antidiabetic tablets and can
be compounded in a pill about twice
the size of an aspirin tablet.
The drug offers little help in child
hood diabetes, but seems moderately
successful in the 20-40 age group, and
appears very effective among the most
diabetic-prone group, those over 40.
Dr. Henry Dolger of Mount Sinai
Hospital, New York City, treated nPnr1
700 patients with the drug and reported
it effective with four out of five patients
over 40. "Nearly half these patients,"
he says, "have been able to discontinue
insulin entirely, even in cases of long
duration or where large doses of in
sulin had been required."
Tolbutamide recently was released
for preSCriotlOn hut urili Vo warn
ing that it can be used only by certain
types of diabetic patients and only with
a physicians approval. The American
Medical Association, in advising a cau
tious approach to the drug, savs far
more research is needed before tolbut
amide's value is fully determined.
TVlO Pkino 41 1-
- oiiumey, or example,
Still must facp a
familiar to every diabetic. He will un
dergo weeks or months of adapting to
insulin types and dosage. He will learn
how to Use a hvnnrWmi. naoAa on
himself and 'live within a prescribed
routine. He will conform to a strict
""i uiougn one tar more varied and
tasteful than the fasting inflicted on
diabetics in the past.
Most diabetics today there are about
1,600,000, with 65,000 new cases dis
covered a
u.uouj dttcpi mis new
stoically, realizing triPV nnro fnrfr1 a
far more tragic fate. They have formed
ciuds and associations to exchange
health tips and confidence. For diabetic
children, there are Summer camps.
Strangely, the advances in diabetic
28
Family Weekly, January 12, 1958
f U Indict
COO ms.
t (-united bv Fnlml b i"
s ftt. invMllml um '
1
This small white pill may
free many diabetics from
the hypodermic needle. It
provides insulin orally.
Unlike previous antidia
betic pills, it has shown
no harmful side effects.
O
therapy are less inspiring to medical
researchers than to laymen, because the
scientist operates on a principle that
demands greater achievement.
"The ultimate goal of medical re
search," says a member of a diabetic
research team at a large university, "is
not curbing a disease, but preventing
and curing it. Until we do that with
diabetes, past achievements must be
considered as only stop-gap measures."
Giving impetus to researchers is the
fact that America's death rate from di
abetes, though drastically reduced, re
mains the highest in the world, 2
times larger than England's for ex
ample. The disorder is directly respon
sible for 25,000 deaths a year, and its
complications kill another 25,000. In
addition, diabetes., largely a disease of
age, is increasing in America because
we have an aging population.
Respite its prevalence and a' 1,000
year medical history, we know
little about the causes of diabetes.
Normally our body uses sugar with the
help of the pancreas, a large insulin
producing gland behind the stomach. In
some diabetics, this gland may be dam
aged, requiring artificial introduction of
insulin. Or perhaps the body makes
more sugar than the pancreas can han
dle, or neutralizes the natural insulin.
The imbalance occurs twice as often
in women as in men and is preceded
by obesity in eight of ten cases. But
statistical knowledge alone does not
explain why diabetes occurs, and until
we learn the cause, a cure or preventive
appears far off.
The American Diabetic Association
stresses the importance of yearly tests, -particularly
for persons past 40 who
are overweight and have a diabetic
history in the family. The association
points out that perhaps one out of three
mild diabetics can be controlled by diet
alone if it is discovered early.
Another tip for the potential diabetic
is to avoid overweight. The National
Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Dis
ease says, "Perhaps the most promising
area for prevention of diabetes is the
control of obesity. Striking decreases
in the incidence and severity of diabetes
accompanied loss of body weight in cer
tain European countries during both
World Wars, and when the food supply
increased, so did diabetes."
Obesity research may not provide the
final answer. False starts and failures
are expected. But from the still-fresh
history of insulin, with its temporary
disappointments and frustrations, to
day's researchers draw encouragement
that they, too, will reach their goal a
preventive and a cure for diabetes.
Family Weekly, January 12, 195
29
better than aspirin ...
even with buffering action
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BECAUSE ASPIRIN contains
O
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wljfone pain reliever ADD BUFFERING ACTION
and you still have only one.
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Relieves
Pain
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Nerves
FifkU
Depression
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BUT ANACIN V
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3 out of 4 doctors
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