I am a Type 1 Diabetic and it got me thinking about how hard it can be to live with, even with the modern medical benefits of insulin, exercise, and a proper diet. I looked into the history and found that around the 1880s, it was discovered what role the pancreas plays and, in 1910 it was discovered it was a lack of insulin that caused it... The interesting info I found was that the original term for diabetes was coined around 250 BCE. Even in the 17th century it was known as "pissing evil" so they knew something was wrong. Also, the ancient Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians, Indians, and Persians knew something was going on because of the "sweet taste of urine" (lol don't even wanna know) which has been found in ancient texts. They knew something was happening and Type 1 diabetes has obviously been around for a long time. My question is this: If a person in those times developed it, was it basically a poor quality of life leading to an eventual death sentence or did they have any way of dealing with it? I know their diets weren't filled with sugar and processed food like today, but from personal experience, I even have to watch eating too much fruit and especially drinking alcohol, which I know they had. When my blood sugar gets too high, I get nauseous, sluggish, my eyes go bad, my body hurts; I can't imagine not having insulin... Lastly, if anyone wants a source I can provide it.
I'm knew to this subreddit so if this is the wrong place I apologize and I'll take it down; I read the posting rules but could have missed something. Im really trying to understand my disease so thanks to anyone who can help me out!
I'm super interested in your question, and hope someone chimes in with a thorough answer. Meanwhile, I found a couple of previous questions that are related and seem to imply the prognosis was not great:
answer by /u/bettinafairchild : https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3euq8h/before_insulin_what_did_people_think_the_cause_of/ brief answer by /u/intangible-tangerine https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/26sx9w/how_did_people_find_out_about_diabetes/
edit: tagged users per modbot request
Since the first comment did a really good job at pointing out previous threads that answer the question, I'll be brief, but I want to shed a bit more light on the question as it relates to ancient Egypt.
There are several medical papyri that survive from pharaonic Egypt. The most well known of these (Papyrus Ebers, Papyrus Hearst, the Edwin Smith Papyrus, and the London Medical Papyrus) all have treatments that would be prescribed for certain ailments, but only the Ebers Papyrus includes a treatment for what is often translated as diabetes mellitus. The treatment it prescribes is to drink a mixture berries, cucumbers, green dates, beer lees, and milk.
Before anyone tries this remedy however, you should know that the identification of the disease as diabetes is highly suspect. As DL Loriaux points out in the Endocrinologist (2006:55-56), the translation of the hieroglyphs reads "...to eliminate urine which is too plentiful/often." Depending on if you translate the final word as plentiful or often, you can diagnose diabetes or cystitis, respectively. Cystitis is a much more common condition than diabetes and the prescribed treatment is much more likely to help than harm an individual suffering from cystitis. The berries, ancient beer, milk, and green dates all contribute a significant amount of sugar to the mixture, which is less likely to help an individual with diabetes.
My current research into pharmacopeia of ancient Egypt (part of my PhD dissertation) strongly suggests to me that diabetes is not the actual ailment the Ebers Papyrus is trying to treat, but there is so little we know about the Egyptian medical terminology - even after over 100 years of research - that it is a (small) possibility.