Rome, May 25 (beraking latest news Salute) – ‘100 years since the discovery of insulin between history, research and narration’. This is the theme of the institutional conference that was held in the Chamber of Deputies to celebrate the centenary of the discovery of insulin, a life-saving hormone whose identification has changed the course of type 1 diabetes, a disease with a poor prognosis until 1921 and today a condition with which to live together and lead a life with prospects of full normality.
“The story of this discovery, which saved millions and millions of people from certain death – underlined Renato Giordano, endocrinologist and diabetologist and president of the Italian Society of Theatrical Medicine (Simt) – like all the key discoveries of humanity is fascinating and at the at the same time incredible, for the events that involved numerous characters “. Starting with “Frederick Banting, a thirty-year-old Canadian doctor, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for this research in 1923, shared with James Macleod, professor of physiology at the University of Toronto, expert in carbohydrate metabolism; Nobel prize then divided by four, including Charles Best and Bert Collip, two other researchers, with an endless procession of controversies, recriminations and disputes “.
Again: “Nicolae Paulescu, Romanian physiologist who until his death fought to have his research recognized, carried out in parallel with the Canadian ones – recalled Giordano – but which were not considered by the Nobel Committee. August and Marie Krogh, who contributed to the development of industrial-scale insulin production. Finally, the unsuspecting Leonard Thompson, a fourteen-year-old teenager, who went down in history for being the first person with diabetes cured by insulin in 1922, and many others who have crossed paths like in a game fascinating of Chinese boxes “.
“The discovery of insulin is certainly one of the key events in the history of medicine, which – said Roberto Pella, parliamentary intergroup coordinator of obesity and diabetes – has made it possible to change the lives of many people. Today, given the dramatic growth in the number of people with diabetes in the world, caused by the advance of the type 2 form, which once manifested itself in the elderly and today in increasingly younger people, we aim to find solutions not only to cure it, but also and above all to prevent it “.
“People with diabetes – highlighted Marialucia Lorefice, president of the Social Affairs Commission – are about 400 million in the world, of which 4 million in Italy alone, and our goal must be to ensure the care of these patients, improving them quality of life. This is a continuously growing disease, which increasingly involves children in the very first years of age, and which records a clear gap between the Northern and Southern Regions, where the incidence is higher not only due to genetic factors, but also to lifestyles. The positive note of the last decade is the reduction in mortality from diabetes decreased by more than 20%. This is a strong signal, the result of the progress of research that sinks the its roots in the discovery of insulin 100 years ago “.