| Popis: |
Since the discovery of insulin (Banting and Best 1922), diabetes mellitus has been associated with deficiency or complete absence of this hormone because countless diabetics have been safeguarded against diabetic coma and premature death by parenteral injection of insulin (Marble 1974). Further advances in the drug treatment of diabetes were made in the late 1950s when the sulphonylureas carbutamide and tolbutamide, which increase insulin secretion and are β-cytotropic, were introduced with great success. These were followed by the biguanides phenformin, buformin and metformin (see Chaps. 4 and 10). These drugs not only provided more user-friendly treatment for type 2 diabetics because of their oral efficacy, but they were also used to investigate the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of the disease, which was then known as “adult-onset diabetes.” At the same time, basic diabetes research gained considerably from the development of a radioimmunoassay which allowed the blood levels of insulin to be determined. |
