Word: absorbable
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Also a disease of metabolism, diabetes is an inability of the body to use sugars. Diabetics can absorb sugar into their bloodstream, but unlike hyperthyroid patients, they cannot burn it up. The sugars merely "stagnate" in the blood until they pass into the urine. A physician who finds an excess amount of sugar in his patient's urine may assume that he is suffering from both hyperthyroidism and diabetes. But the diseases need opposite treatments. Diabetics, who cannot make use of the sugars they already have, must be deprived of carbohydrates; hyperthyroids, who burn up their sugars too rapidly...
...hyperthyroids, after meals, passed sugars into their bloodstreams at the same rate of speed. But Dr. Althausen questioned this belief, set to work on the hunch that the rate of speed of sugar absorption depends directly upon the amount of thyroxin produced by the thyroid gland. Thus, hyperthyroids would absorb sugars at a higher rate of speed than diabetics. Last week, he reported a simple new sugar-timing test which he has used successfully on 250 patients. For this long-awaited achievement, he was promptly awarded the Van Meter Prize of $300 by the American Association for the Study...