Insulin: Discovery and Mechanism of Action

Insulin is a hormone used to control blood glucose. This hormone can act on cells to: stimulate glucose, protein, and lipid metabolism. Understanding insulin is important for knowing its effect if there is an inadequate amount in the body. Before scientists understood insulin, people who’s bodies stopped producing the hormone weren’t able to live very long. Researches attempted to find ways to restart the production of insulin once they discovered it was needed to burn glucose as energy. You are able to understand this hormone when you learn how insulin was discovered, insulin’s mechanism of action, and its potential application in the treatment of diabetes. First, Insulin was discovered over time. In the beginning observations showed that patients that died of diabetes often had a damaged pancreas. In 1869 Paul Langerhans found that, within the pancreatic tissue that produces digestive enzymes, there was a cluster of cells. These cells were found to be insulin-producing beta cells, and the clusters were called islets of Langerhans after their founder. In 1889 in Germany a physiologist named Oskar Minkowski and physician Joseph von Mering showed that if the pancreas was removed from a dog, the dog got diabetes. Also, they surgically tied off the duct that the pancreatic juices flow to the intestines the dog only developed digestive problems. With this research they found that they pancreas produces digestive juices and produces something that regulate sugar glucose. In 1920 in Toronto, Canada, Dr. Fredrick Banting thought that the digestive juices from the pancreas could be harmful to the secretion of the pancreas produced by the islets of Langerhans. He wanted to experiment his hypothesis of tying off the pancreatic ducts to stop the flow of nourishment to the pancreas and this would cause the pancreas to degenerate. This would make the pancreas shrink and lose its