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Timothy Stamps Correspondent—

Yesterday, November 14, was World Diabetes Day. In the 1600s diabetes was known as “the pissing disease” because the major symptom was excessive urination, leading to premature death.In the first decade of the 19th Century, it was part of what the then medical profession called the obesity sextette.

The other five were gout, fatness, stroke, high blood pressure and cardiac arrest.

In 1921, insulin was discovered to be the cause of diabetes occurring in childhood, by Banting and Best.

Insulin was also used briefly for young people who didn’t have diabetes but presented to their doctors because they were growing slower than other children of their age.

A series of five injections of insulin seemed to work.

Every year, Zimbabwe joins the world in marking World Diabetes Day.

I think, it is important to clarify some of the fog which has developed, even in the medical profession, over the way to differentiate the types which are generally applied to diabetes.

Basically, they can be divided into two types, insulin-dependent and chronic.

There is also a third type which is temporary, although it predicts the greater likelihood of development of the chronic type later on in life and it seems to affect Asian women predominantly in pregnancy.

The cost of management of all types of diabetes has been grossly underestimated.

Cost is not only measured in US dollar terms, but in human life and the effect of diabetes on personal well-being as well as the overall effect on development.

For example in New York City within the last decade, the loss of life to diabetes and its complications has been around 3 000 souls, according to a report from their health manager.

As the total population of New York City is about 13 million, it is a very appropriate measure for a country like Zimbabwe which at the last census had a population of about 12 million plus.

So it is important that we are all clear on this issue.

Type I diabetes was a major cause of immediate death in children.

Until 1921 when Banting and Best discovered and experimented with an enzyme derived from the pancreas, which they called insulin and first delivered it after tests to a child dying of diabetes.

Her full recovery was at the time regarded as a miracle because up until that time diabetes, also known in England as the “pissing disease”, was inevitably fatal (and of course diagnosed by the frequency of micturition).

The use of insulin in the medical practice in the 1920s spread rapidly.

The fact that being derived from pig tissue did generate in an increasing number of people allergic reactions.

Also some religions especially monotheistic such as Jews, Muslims and some sects of Christianity would not accept any pig product into their bodies however, administered.

The entire development of synthetic insulins which is highly profitable today developed as a result of those two early reservations about the use of insulin.

As a result for a long time Type I diabetes was known in the health professions as juvenile diabetes and insulin was the treatment although some Type II becomes insulin-dependent.

Chronic diabetes Type II is long-term, and the patient is more likely to die from complications than diabetes itself.

Because every cell in every mammalian body depends upon energy carried in the form of sugar periodic shortfalls or depletion of energy supplies affects the efficiency of every cell in the body, just as putting the wrong type of fuel into your tank will not make your car run as well, and if you keep on doing that it does more extensive damage to the engine.

There’s no part of the body bone, muscle, heart, circulation, eye, brain and internal organs which can continue operating efficiently without eventually getting permanent damage which is irreversible and that is why there has been a growing interest in transplants of all types (heart, renal, lung, liver etc).

Type II diabetes is treated with tablets and diet and constantly needs monitoring throughout the rest of life and forms the major part of medical practice because everybody is susceptible.

That is also why there is so much emphasis nowadays on lifestyle.

Everybody who goes to hospital has to have a urine test whatever the cause for admission.

Type III is also known popularly as pregnancy induced diabetes because in pregnancy there is a greater demand for resources on the human body, because the unborn child is entirely dependent upon food supplied through the placenta of the mother.

That is why it is important to be able to supply the essential requirements to the mother and that is why both antenatal care has become very important.

Doctors differ on the amount of medical support each pregnancy should require but with our maternal mortality so high one of the factors causing it must be, to my mind, the interrupted supply of energy to both mother and unborn child.

This, surely, is an issue where the whole community, nay, the nation, should be involved not as a way of interfering but the individual should contribute in their own way to the progress of our nation, Zimbabwe.

***

I think I should comment on the outcome of the American Presidential election although it does not affect us directly. Walt Disney published a delightful fairy tale in the 1950’s called “The Lady and the Tramp” in which the lady was eventually the winner.

In the current election the Lady and the Trump, the final outcome was that the Trump won.

That resulted in a lot of people being famous for the prophesies being asked, did they forsee the outcome of the American election?

A lot of the prophet foresaw the final result and in our case TB Joshua, a Nigerian prophet, confidently predicted that Hilary Clinton would win, thus ending up with egg on his face.

After all I can recall him witnessing the death of about one thousand of his devoted followers of which one hundred were South Africans, including, I think, three Zimbabweans.

Somehow, he managed to recover his popularity after that event.

Ronald Reagan, who was paradoxically the head of the film actors Trade Union, and the governor of California, won the presidential election by simply defying economics of the day, by saying “Depression means you losing your job, recession means your neighbour losing his job, and restitution means Jimmy Carter [then President of the United States and standing in opposition to him] losing his job.”

Later on, it became known as Reaganomics.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, a black pastor in America, stood for president of the United States three times.

The last one being against George W Bush.

He then said “Pigs will fly, when a black person gets to be president of this country”.

In 2008 the Democrats chose Obama to represent them, as he had a totally impeccable record. As we all know, Obama won that election for the Democrats.

Within three months Rev Jesse Jacksons prophesy came true — swine flu.

Pamberi nekubatana!

Dr Timothy J Stamps is Health Advisor to the President and Cabinet