La diabetes mellitus en la época y en la obra de Roberto Nóvoa Santos (1885-1933) : un análisis histórico-médico

Abstract

[Abstract] The modern epoch of diabetes began around 1674, with the publication of Thomas Willis’s Pharmaceutice Rationalis sive diatriba de Medicamentorum Operationibus in Humano Corpore. From then until 1921, the year in which insulin was discovered, researchers in all civilized countries made important gains in alleviating the illness. During the “Silver Age” of Spanish culture, which Laín Entralgo places between 1898 and 1936, leading North American researchers and clinicians like Allen and Joslin and Europeans like Falta, Pende, Krehl, Carrasco i Formiguera, Pi Suñer, Marañón and Nóvoa Santos, were at the height of their powers, which is why we focus on their diabetological work both before and alter the transcendental discovery of insulin. A substantial part of Nóvoa Santos’s research was devoted to diabetes. To its study he contributed another transcendental discovery, that of the role of 12 secretin as an incretor, as well as its therapeutic use in the treatment of diabetes some ten years before the Belgian La Barre, anticipating, in 1924, the role which incretins now play in the twenty-first century. He was also a precocious contributor to the physiopathological and semantic concept of insulin resistance.

[Resumo] A época moderna da diabetes empeza cara ao 1674, cando Thomas Willis publica Pharmaceutice Rationalis sive diatriba de Medicamentorum Operationibus in Humano Corpore. Desde daquela ata 1921, ano en que se produce o descubrimento da insulina, os investigadores de todos os países civilizados realizan grandes esforzos en favor de aliviar a enfermidade. Na Idade de Prata da Cultura Española, que Laín Entralgo situou entre 1898 e 1936, importantes investigadores e clínicos norteamericanos como Allen e Joslin e europeos como Falta, Pende, Krehl, Carrasco i Formiguera, Pi Suñer, Marañón e Nóvoa Santos, están en plenitude de facultades, o que fai que teñamos unha interesante obra diabetolóxica súa, previa e posterior a este transcendental descubrimento. A parte da obra de Nóvoa Santos dedicada á diabetes, é unha porción substancial da mesma. A ela contribuíu co transcendental descubrimento do papel incretor da secretina e a súa proposta como tratamento da diabetes, uns dez anos antes do Belga La Barre, anticipando, en 1924, o moderno papel que xogan as incretinas en pleno século XXI. Ademais foi un precoz introdutor do concepto fisiopatolóxico e semántico de Resistencia á Insulina.