Q 01/05

The word 'diabetes' comes from a Greek word meaning what?

A) A burning fever

B) A passer-through or siphon

C) An unquenchable thirst

D) A wasting of the body

Answer · why

B) A passer-through or siphon

A passer-through or siphon: Greek physicians pictured drink running straight through the patient as if through a tube, and Aretaeus wrote that the bod...

Q 02/05

What did the English physician Thomas Willis report about his diabetic patients' urine in the 1670s?

A) It smelled of ammonia

B) It turned dark

C) It was cloudy

D) It tasted sweet

Answer · why

D) It tasted sweet

It tasted sweet: Willis sampled his patients' urine himself, and the Latin word mellitus, 'honey-sweet', in the disease's full name records the same f...

Q 03/05

Which Egyptian manuscript from around 1500 BCE mentions 'too great emptying of the urine'?

A) The Book of the Dead

B) The Rosetta Stone

C) The Ebers papyrus

D) The Edwin Smith papyrus

Answer · why

C) The Ebers papyrus

It even recommends a drink to take for the condition.

Q 04/05

Type 2 diabetes was formerly known by what name?

A) Adult-onset

B) Juvenile

C) Insulin-dependent

D) Bronze

Answer · why

A) Adult-onset

Adult-onset stopped fitting: type 2 is now increasingly diagnosed in children, as rates have climbed alongside obesity since 1960.

Q 05/05

Which Oscar-winning actor announced on David Letterman's show in 2013 that he had type 2 diabetes?

A) Denzel Washington

B) Tom Hanks

C) Kevin Costner

D) Jeff Bridges

Answer · why

B) Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks said his doctor told him he had 'graduated' after years of high blood sugar readings, and joked that getting back to his high-school weight ...