A Promising Treatment
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In 1922 the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co. successfully removed impurities from insulin and started to produce it on a large scale, paying royalties to Toronto University where Banting patented his insulin. Their success attracted global attention within a year, the Netherlands receiving and distributing its first dose in 1923. Insulin became Eli Lilly and Co.’s most important drug, doing far more financially and branding-wise for the firm than any other.
The journey towards discovering insulin was not only difficult but insulin goes through an extremely complex process within the human body. The journey starts with insulin producing cells located in the pancreas. Insulin is synthesized and released into the bloodstream. After its release, insulin passes through the liver, where more than half of it is removed before continuing to the heart and then the rest of the body. In the brain, insulin regulates appetite, energy balance, and may influence cognition and mood. It is ultimately removed by the kidneys (see image).
The main function of insulin is to regulate glucose levels in the blood. However, what exactly happens when these glucose levels are too low or too high in the human body? Just like your phone needs electricity, our human body needs glucose. When glucose levels are too low, our brains cannot function properly but when the glucose levels are too high, you can feel tired, experience blurred vision or fall into a coma
In diabetes, the glucose levels are too high. There are two common forms of diabetes: type I or type II. In type I diabetes there is a mistake in your immune system, which causes the removal of the specific insulin producing cells