I’m reading Tove Dietlevsen’s Dependence, and some time after she gets hospitalized for her painkiller addiction, she is given an insulin injection. What is the purpose? Is it the 1940s thing? Did it have something to do with the fact she had trouble eating?
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In the 1930s-50s, doctors would try to “shock” people out of undesirable behaviors (addiction, homosexuality, depression, etc) using various methods which are now widely recognized as pseudoscience.
One of those methods involved using insulin to induce low blood sugar and cause a near-comatose state. This is incredibly dangerous and can cause seizures and death.
For non-diabetic people there is generally no benefit to taking extra insulin outside of a few niche medical applications (real medicine, not 1940s medicine). Taking more insulin on top of what your body produces will probably cause low blood sugar and other complications.
> other than for diabetes
Apparently it’s also used to treat hyperkalemia (high potassium levels).
> Did it have something to do with the fact she had trouble eating?
Low blood sugar does tend to make you feel hungry, so I could imagine that someone might have thought it was a good treatment for anorexia, but as far as I know it is not used for this today.
We also use insulin (with sugar) on occasion to bring down potassium levels in the blood when they are too high. I haven’t read the book so I don’t know the circumstances or if this applies but it is another use for insulin outside of diabetes.
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