TREATMENT OF DIABETES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19138, 6 October 1936, Page 3

TREATMENT OF DIABETES

NEW TYPE OF INSULIN ADDITION OF ZINC C.\X ADT A X EXPERIMENTS MONTREAL. Sept. 4. A Toronto doctor's discovery that zitii• increased the effect.' of insulin lias opened the way to a new. and described as Mteeesslul. treatment of diabetes. The new type of insulin, described by Dr. I. M. Babinowiteh of .Montreal, itt the current issue of the Canadian .Medical Association Journal, was discovered bv Dr. D. A. Scott of the Connaught l.alioratories. University of Toronto.

Dr. Hem l found by experimenting with animals that when zinc was added to insulin, the. injected solution had a more prolonged effect, upon the blood sugar than insulin without the zinc. In some eases the. effects, were equal to the recent t v-discovered Danish prom mine insulin. Dr. Babinowiteh reports. Following further experiments by Dr. J. S. Foster of McGill University and Professor C. 11. Best of' the Connaught Laboratories, to discover the quantity of zinc needed in treatment- of human beings, t lie new mixture, called pro-tamine-zine-insnlin. was used in the .Montreal General Hospital, where Dr. Babinowiteh is director of llie department of metabolism. Here. l)r. Babinowiteh relates, a live-year-old girl in the hist' stages oi diabetes was cured completely, sixteen anti a half Ilnurs after one injection. The child was admitted to hospital in a state of pre-coma, with the blood sugar extremely high.

Ten units only of protamine-zine-iu-snlin were given here and with no other treatment and no further ■administration. the blood sugar returned to normal and the child recovered completely. “The juvenile diabetic undoubtedly responds mure readily to small doses of insulin than the adult," said Dr. Kabitiowileh. “However, in view of the clinical conditions in general, the response noted in this ease was not expected. It had never been met- with before, with the regular insulin, increased sensitivity to (lie . injected insulin appears to have been the cause. The addition of zinc. Dr. Babinowiteh states. Inis been found to increase the sensitivity of the diabetic to insulin, as proved, in. the case of the girl. Severe diabetics, he adds, ordinarily requiring three or more injections a day of the old insulin, littds one injection of the new mix In re each dnv is sufficient.