Listen&Learn: The Discovery of Insulin

Posted by: Jaksyn Peacock

Learn the history of the life-saving drug for people with diabetes.

Pre-listening vocabulary

diabetes: a disease that causes people to have very high blood sugar levels
treatment: a process that helps a person with a disease
diet: a selection of food that is recommended for someone to eat
pancreas: a particular organ in the body
hormone: a chemical that affects the way the body works
regulate: to control the amount of something

Listening activity

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:22 — 1.3MB)

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Gapfill exercise

Comprehension questions

[wp_quiz id=”20821″]

Discussion/essay questions

What is a medical discovery that you hope will happen in the near future?

Transcript

Diabetes is a very treatable disease today. But historically, people with diabetes did not live very long. For many years, the best treatment that doctors could offer was a diet low in sugar. In 1921, a Canadian doctor named Frederick Banting started to experiment with the cells in a dog’s pancreas. He believed that the pancreas was the organ that controlled blood sugar. Banting did his research at the University of Toronto with two other scientists named Charles Best and James Collip. During their research, they found the hormone that the body uses to regulate blood sugar levels. They used this hormone to create a treatment for diabetes, which we now call insulin. In 1923, Banting won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his work.

Written and recorded by Jaksyn Peacock for EnglishClub

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12 comments

English Club Indonesia says:

I hope fungal infections can be treated quickly and effectively in the future.
eka says:

thanks
Ajmal says:

Thank you,it is very useful for me
Sivasankari says:

I finished the questions..
Maureen Mark- Connelly says:

Wonderful to learn a language and enrich one’s general knowledge at the same time..Thank you, English Club
Noemia Levy says:

That’s amazing! Learning with a lot of relevance contents. Thank you so much!
Jorge Berg says:

It´s a pleasant way to study.
Thank you.
Reza says:

Hoping for a definitive cure for this disease.
Christine PENNEC says:

good
The King Of Love From IRAN says:

Thank you for sharing it with us,
Hilario says:

I loved it, very usefully
Cong Trinh says:

I loved it. It’s usefully to me. Thanks a lot.