Diabetes Mellitus: Its differentiation into insulin-sensitive and insulin-insensitive types

Extract

In previous publications^1,2,3,4,5 it has been shown that the efficiency with which insulin acts in the body is governed by an unknown factor or condition which renders the body sensitive both to injected and pancreatic insulin. When this sensitising factor is limited the efficiency with which each unit of insulin depresses the blood-sugar is decreased, and when it is abundant the efficiency of each unit is correspondingly increased. It can easily be seen that if this sensitising factor is limited below a certain degree, then the insulin in the body will be relatively powerless and the symptoms and signs of hypoinsulinism, clinically recognisable as diabetes mellitus, will appear. This consideration led me to suggest^4,5 that a type of diabetes mellitus might exist which was due, not to lack of insulin, but rather to lack of this sensitising factor. An investigation of cases of diabetic patients from this point of view was therefore commenced.