Insulin is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the INS gene. It is considered to be the main anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats and protein by promoting the absorption of glucose from the blood into liver, fat and skeletal muscle cells. In these tissues the absorbed glucose is converted into either glycogen via glycogenesis or fats (triglycerides) via lipogenesis, or, in the case of the liver, into both. Glucose production and secretion by the liver is strongly inhibited by high concentrations of insulin in the blood. Circulating insulin also affects the synthesis of proteins in a wide variety of tissues. It is therefore an anabolic hormone, promoting the conversion of small molecules in the blood into large molecules inside the cells. Low insulin levels in the blood have the opposite effect by promoting widespread catabolism, especially of reserve body fat.
John James Rickard Macleod,, was a Scottish biochemist and physiologist. He devoted his career to diverse topics in physiology and biochemistry, but was chiefly interested in carbohydrate metabolism. He is noted for his role in the discovery and isolation of insulin during his tenure as a lecturer at the University of Toronto, for which he and Frederick Banting received the 1923 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine. Awarding the prize to Macleod was controversial at the time, because according to Banting's version of events, Macleod's role in the discovery was negligible. It was not until decades after the events that an independent review acknowledged a far greater role than was attributed to him at first.
Sir Frederick Grant Banting was a Canadian medical scientist, physician, painter, and Nobel laureate noted as the co-discoverer of insulin and its therapeutic potential.
Charles Herbert Best, was an American-Canadian medical scientist and one of the co-discoverers of insulin.
Wallace Edwards was a Canadian children’s author and illustrator whose imagination transformed the world of animals and strange creatures for a generation of children. His illustrations don’t condescend to children, they engage the imagination on multiple levels, blending childhood whimsy with adult sophistication."
James Bertram Collip was a Canadian biochemist who was part of the Toronto group which isolated insulin. He served as the chair of the department of biochemistry at McGill University from 1928 to 1941 and dean of medicine at the University of Western Ontario from 1947 to 1961, where he was a charter member of The Kappa Alpha Society.
Diabetes Canada is a registered national charity whose mission includes serving the 11 million Canadians living with diabetes or prediabetes. Diabetes Canada programs include:
Leonard Thompson is the first person to have received an injection of insulin as a treatment for Type 1 diabetes.
Deborah Ellis is a Canadian fiction writer and activist. Her themes are often concerned with the sufferings of persecuted children in the Third World.
Michael Somogyi was a Hungarian-American professor of biochemistry at Washington University in St. Louis and the Jewish Hospital of St. Louis. He prepared the first insulin treatment given to a child with diabetes in the US in October 1922. Somogyi later showed that excessive insulin makes diabetes unstable in the Chronic Somogyi rebound to which he gave his name.
Elizabeth Evans Hughes Gossett, the daughter of U.S. statesman Charles Evans Hughes, was the first American, and one of the first people in the world, treated with insulin for type 1 diabetes. She received over 42,000 insulin shots over her lifetime.
Banting House is a former residence and current museum in London, Ontario, Canada. Located at 442 Adelaide Street North, it is known as the “Birthplace of Insulin.” It is the house where Sir Frederick Banting woke up at two o'clock in the morning on October 31, 1920 with the idea that led to the discovery of insulin.
Vesanto Melina is a Canadian Registered Dietitian and co-author of books that have become classics in the field of vegetarian, vegan, and raw foods nutrition, have sold almost a million copies in English and are in nine additional languages. She has presented talks and workshops on various aspects of vegetarian, vegan and raw foods and nutrition for dietitians, health professionals, and vegetarian associations in 17 American states and 9 Canadian provinces, and in 10 countries.
The condition known today as diabetes is thought to have been described in the Ebers Papyrus. Ayurvedic physicians first noted the sweet taste of diabetic urine, and called the condition madhumeha. The term diabetes traces back to Demetrius of Apamea. For a long time, the condition was described and treated in traditional Chinese medicine asxiāo kě. Physicians of the medieval Islamic world, including Avicenna, have also written on diabetes. Early accounts often referred to diabetes as a disease of the kidneys. In 1674, Thomas Willis suggested that diabetes may be a disease of the blood. Johann Peter Frank is credited with distinguishing diabetes mellitus and diabetes insipidus in 1794.
Mladen Vranic, MD, DSc, O.C., O.Ont, FRSC, FRCP(C), FCAHS, Canadian Medical Hall of Fame[CMHF] April 3, 1930 – June 18, 2019, was a Croatian-born diabetes researcher, best known for his work in tracer methodology, exercise and stress in diabetes, the metabolic effects of hormonal interactions, glucagon physiology, extrapancreatic glucagon, the role of the direct and indirect metabolic effects of insulin and the prevention of hypoglycemia. Vranic was recognized by a number of national and international awards for his research contributions, mentoring and administration including the Orders of Canada (Officer) and Ontario.
The Flame of Hope is an eternal flame located in London, Ontario, Canada that honours Sir Frederick Banting's discovery of insulin, as well as all those who have been affected by diabetes. Simultaneously, it serves as a reminder that insulin manages diabetes but does not cure it; ultimately, it stands for the hope that a cure will soon be found.
The Connaught Medical Research Laboratories was a non-commercial public health entity established by Dr. John G. FitzGerald in 1914 in Toronto to produce the diphtheria antitoxin. Contemporaneously, the institution was likened to the Pasteur Institutes in France and Belgium and the Lister Institute in London. It expanded significantly after the discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921, manufacturing and distributing insulin at cost in Canada and overseas. Its non-commercial mandate mediated commercial interests and kept the medication accessible. In the 1930s, methodological advances at Connaught updated the international standard for insulin production.
Walter Ruggles "Dynamite" Campbell was a Canadian physician and diabetologist, known as the first physician "to administer insulin to a patient."
Andrew Almon Fletcher was a Canadian physician and pioneering diabetologist, known as one of the five co-authors of the famous 1922 paper Pancreatic Extracts in the Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus.
Gladys Lillian Boyd was a Canadian paediatrician at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She was a pioneer in the treatment of juvenile diabetes. A collaborator of Sir Frederick Banting, she was one of the first physicians to treat diabetic children with insulin.
