Citation

Marks V. Practical Diabetes International 2005; 22(8): 303-306.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005)

DOI

10.1002/pdi.854

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Insulin has saved countless lives since its introduction for the treatment of diabetes; it has also destroyed a few through accidents or misuse. It invariably does this by causing hypoglycaemia which has more profound effects upon cognitive than on motor function. It can render a normally gentle, friendly and helpful person into a maniacal monster with no conception of right or wrong and capable of violent assault or manslaughter. Treatment of diabetes with insulin also leads to a two-fold increase in motoring accidents. Most of these are trivial but a minority are fatal. Examples of this and the use of insulin as a suicidal agent and the difficulty in separating it from factitious hypoglycaemia are described in the first of these two articles. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language: en

Keywords

human; cognition; violence; homicide; suicide; Suicide; Violence; Aggression; depression; aggression; forensic psychiatry; drug overdose; review; antisocial behavior; medicolegal aspect; drug blood level; court; drug fatality; drug misuse; motor performance; alcohol blood level; glucose blood level; diabetes mellitus; glucose; glibenclamide; hypoglycemia; insulin; insulin dependent diabetes mellitus; sulfonylurea; factitious disease; hyperglycemia; blood glucose monitoring; automatism; chlorothiazide; diabetic diet; Factitious hypoglycaemia; Insulin accidents; insulin hypoglycemia; insulinoma