More for Diabetics

Last week from Canada issued more good news for diabetics. From the duodenal membranes of rabbits, dogs, hogs and cattle they had isolated a new hormone. Fed in powder form or injected into patients with diabetes, it reduced blood sugar to normal. Quietly Dean Archibald Bruce Macallum and Associate Professor of Physiology Norman B. Laughton of the University of Western Ontario Medical School made a preliminary report of their discovery to the Royal Society of England. As a diabetes medicine it may prove as effective as the insulin Toronto University's Drs. Banting & Best discovered.

Insulin is a hormone secreted by the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. Its function is to regulate the combustion and storage of sugar in the body. Failure of these small cellular masses causes blood sugar to increase abnormally. Withdrawal of sugar from the tissues results in hunger, weakness, loss of weight; tissue proteins and fats become converted to sugar to satisfy the body's needs, the patient is starved of carbohydrates. As a substitute for the body's insulin the patient is given injections of commercial insulin prepared from the pancreas of hogs or oxen. But to regulate the action of the insulin (i.e., prevent too great a reduction of blood sugar) a strict diet must be observed. The danger of insulin treatment is that the patient by relaxing his diet may get an hypoglycemic shock--break into a cold sweat, have convulsions, collapse. Unless a physician is on hand to give an injection of glucose solution he may even die.

The hormone of Drs. Macallum & Laughton has two advantages that insulin lacks. Not only may it be taken by mouth (insulin must be injected) but it cannot reduce the blood sugar below the normal (.08-.12%). Experiments both on animals and on human subjects confirmed this. But Drs. Macallum & Laughton, treading warily, think experiments on human patients in a few U. S. and Canadian hospitals should continue for four or five years before their new hormone may be introduced for general use.

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