that has saved the lives of millions  of people who suffer from diabetes.

Yet Best could have been a forgotten  footnote in the medical history books

if it weren't for a coin toss.

It all goes back to 1921 when Banting,  who was born in rural Ontario,  

Canada had returned from the war as a decorated  veteran and embarked on a career in medicine.

He had become deeply interested  in diabetes - a disease that had  

plagued humanity for thousands of  years and inevitably led to death.

Diabetes results from too much sugar in the  

blood - which is why it's important for  diabetics to limit junk food and carbs.

In 1921, 14-year-old Leonard Thompson  of Toronto was at death's door.  

He weighed just 65 pounds and was drifting  in and out of consciousness in hospital.  

Little did he know that he would  soon be in the history books.

Scientists suspected diabetes was caused  by a lack of insulin, a hormone formed in  

the pancreas that helps the body turn blood sugar  into energy. But they couldn't prove their theory.

While working as a physician and surgeon,  Banting was also teaching part-time at  

the University of Western Ontario in  London, two hours' drive from Toronto.

While preparing a lecture on the  pancreas, he had a eureka moment  

one night, rising from his bed at 2am to jot down  a 25-word hypothesis on how to treat diabetes.

He suspected that an enzyme formed in  the pancreas broke down the insulin.

So he set out to destroy the enzymes while  preserving the cells that produced insulin.

But first, he had to test his hypothesis  on lab animals – in this case, 

dogs - by extracting insulin from  healthy dogs and injecting it into  

dogs with diabetes, convinced that it  would control if not cure the disease.

So, he visited John James Rickard Macleod - a  professor of physiology at the University of  

Toronto and an international expert in diabetes  and asked if he could use his laboratory.

Macleod was skeptical but agreed the idea  was worth testing. He gave Banting lab space,  

10 dogs, and insisted that he  also have a research assistant  

because Banting didn't have any  research experience himself.

This is where the crucial  coin toss came into play.

Banting had a choice between two assistants: Charles Best and Clark Noble. Both recently  

completed their undergraduate degrees from the  U of T's physiology and biochemistry program.  

Both knew full well that finding a cure for  diabetes would make headlines around the world.  

Noble already had a distinguished  research background. He had worked  

on important early studies helping  to characterize the action of insulin  

and he co-authored many of the  original papers describing insulin.  

For Best, the rush to help diabetics was  personal. His aunt had died of the disease  

which had a profound effect on him. Banting needed only one assistant for  

what was supposed to be a two-month project. They decided to flip a coin to see who would  

join Banting for the first month and  who would assist him for the second.

Best won that coin toss.

However, instead of switching assistants  halfway, Banting was apparently so impressed  

with Best's work that he decided to keep  the young protégé on for the entire project.

Noble later wrote a letter explaining that  “Best had become proficient in assisting  

Dr. Banting in his surgical techniques  so it was mutually agreed, in the best  

interest of the experiments, that Best should  continue to work out the full time with him.”

Banting and Best began working in May 1921. Banting was 29 years old. 

Best was 22 and had not  yet entered medical school.

Banting was supposed to do the surgeries  while Best was to measure blood and sugar  

levels but both actually became  adept at the others' specialty.

They recorded their experiments in a series of  notebooks that documented their difficulties.

Many of the dogs died of infections in the  summer heat. But that didn't deter the two men.  

Their persistence paid off. At the  end of July, they managed to reduce  

blood sugar levels in one diabetic dog. And  then they tested it successfully on others.

It hadn't yet been tried on humans but  they were determined to save the life of  

14-year-old Leonard Thompson whom I mentioned  earlier so they prematurely injected him with  

impure pancreatic extracts from those dogs  with the permission of the boy's father.  

Unfortunately, Thompson suffered  a severe allergic reaction.  

Another researcher, the biochemist Dr. James  Collip, was added to the team and managed to  

prepare a purer form of insulin that reduced the  boy's blood sugar levels and saved his life.  

News of his recovery spread, leading  families to write letters to the scientists 

asking for urgent treatment.  

Insulin clinics were established  at various hospitals in the city.

A University of Toronto surgeon who witnessed  the early trials described how patients in  

comas injected with insulin “...awakened  dramatically, snatched from death's door.”  

And in the case of this young girl,  looked unrecognizable four months later.  

Banting, Best, and Collip sold the patent for  insulin to the University of Toronto for just  

$1. They didn't want to profit from a discovery  that could save lives and wanted everyone who  

needed insulin to be able to afford it. The University then entered into an  

agreement with an American pharmaceutical  company to begin large-scale production.

Within two years, insulin was widely  available to diabetics around the world,  

saving the lives of millions of people.

We'll never know whether the discovery  of insulin would have taken a different  

path had Best lost that coin toss. Despite his role in one of the greatest  

discoveries of the 20th century,  he didn't exactly get the credit.

Best was left out when the Nobel prize  for Physiology or Medicine in 1923 

went to Banting and McLeod - the lab  director who had spent the summer of 1921  

vacationing in Scotland while  his assistants worked away.

The Nobel prize to Macleod was so surprising  and controversial that Banting threatened to  

reject the award. He later reconsidered and gave  Best half his prize money while Macleod gave  

his half to Collip – the researcher who purified  insulin and saved the life of that 14-year-old boy

who, by the way, lived another 13 years.  He died of pneumonia at the age of 27,  

thought to be a complication of his diabetes.

The original manufactured insulin came from pigs  and cows and its impurities still resulted in  

complications over time, so people with  diabetes still lived shortened lives.

Since 1982, synthetic "human" insulin has  been manufactured - artificially made from  

gene-splicing techniques. Its purity  has increased to 99 per cent and today,  

insulin-dependent diabetics who  take care of themselves by eating  

healthy food and exercising can  enjoy a near-normal lifespan.

Living a healthy lifestyle is more important  than ever, especially as people work from home.  

I used to spend hours a day editing  these videos sitting down, which was  

really hard on my back and  negatively affected my posture. 

Which is why my new standing desk  from UPLIFT has been a game-changer. 

This desk has been rated the best standing desk  of 2021 by the product review website Wirecutter. 

The quality is incredible, there  are loads of ways to customize it,  

and it comes with a 15-year warranty. If you're considering a standing desk, you can  

check out UPLIFT at the link in my description.

For Newsthink, I'm Cindy Pom.