"Humans have known about diabetes for a long, long time. There's records from across the world for thousands of years. But until the 1900s we really didn't know what was happening, and oftentimes the disease was simply a death sentence. We now know that diabetes happens when the sugar traveling in your bloodstream to give your body energy can't seem to connect to the body's receptors right to do that job. That's because we need insulin to make that connection happen."
"Well, here's the thing to remember: Turning sugar into energy is a really fundamental thing. It's what the famed powerhouse of the cell does! And so getting that sugar to the cells that need it is just as fundamental. So while you or I may have only ever heard the word insulin used as a medicine for people, the chemical insulin, or a similar insulin-like chemical, is found in nearly every single animal."
Diabetes has been recorded worldwide for thousands of years and remained poorly understood until the 1900s, when its mechanisms began to be revealed. Diabetes occurs when blood sugar cannot enter cells because insulin is absent or ineffective. The body either fails to produce enough insulin or cannot use it properly. Converting sugar into usable cellular energy is a fundamental biological process performed by cellular mitochondria. Insulin or insulin-like chemicals exist across nearly all animals, so diverse species, including pets and unusual organisms, can develop diabetes. Studying varied animals can therefore illuminate basic metabolic processes relevant to diabetes.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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