Sixty Years of Confronting Diabetes and Kidney Disease

The good old days were not good, at least in terms of treating patients with type 2 diabetes. In the 1960s, the development of a radioimmunoassay for insulin permitted determination of the distinguishing features of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The latter was treated with sulfonylureas and then phenformin, although the mechanisms of action at the time were unknown. The University Group Diabetes Program was a randomized controlled trial experienced by my medical generation, and the results were dramatic, both medically and legally. Next came the thiazolidinediones. All compounds were associated with weight gain and any end point benefits were uncertain. Nevertheless, basic science explained how glucose is sensed and even found a home for sulfonylureas in some patients. Next came the boom in renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system blockade, sacred ground for many, albeit the benefits were less than astounding. Other wonder drugs came and went. Over the decades, great strides were made in defining the pathology of diabetic renal disease, which is appropriate because the condition has become a primary cause of end-stage renal failure. Nonetheless, recent advances have turned around a depressing situation and are reasons for optimism. We now have compounds that actually could help patients with type 2 diabetes. One hundred years after insulin's introduction, it is high time.