Banting Memorial Lecture 2013 A life in balance: wandering the pathways of control. Issue 4 (April 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Amiel, S. A.
• Is Part Of: Diabetic medicine. Volume 31:Issue 4(2014:Apr.)
• Page Start: 382
• Page End: 392
• Publication Date: 2014-04
• Subjects: Diabetes -- Periodicals; 616.462
• DOI: 10.1111/dme.12351
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0742-3071

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="dme12351-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>'To keep in equilibrium', one of the Oxford English Dictionary's many definitions of balance, is a desirable target for any life, but has special meaning for the life of a person with diabetes. Achieving balance—between hypo‐ and hyper‐glycaemia; between energy intake and energy consumption; between insulin action and insulin secretion; between attention to diabetes and attention to everything else—remains challenging, but progress has been made over the last three decades, both in our understanding of how nature achieves balance and in the tools we have to try to reproduce the actions of nature in disease states. In particular, the role of the brain in controlling diabetes, from glucose sensing to decision making, has been investigated. Physiological and neuro‐imaging studies are finally being translated into patient benefit, with the aim of improving, as Dr Banting put it, the provision of 'energy for the economic burdens of life'.</p> </abstract>