VIII. Activities Within The Human Organism. Diabetes Mellitus

Man's essential food contains carbohydrates for example. To a degree these are similar to starch. As such they are substances which unfold their activity in the plant. They enter into the human body in the state which they can achieve in the plant. In this state starch is a foreign body. The human organism does not develop any activity which lies in the direction of what starch can unfold as activity in the state in which it enters the body. For example, what develops in the human liver as a substance similar to starch (glycogen), is something different from plant starch. On the other hand grape-sugar is a substance which stimulates activities that are of a nature similar to the activities of the human body. To develop an effect that plays any real part in the body, it must first be transformed. It is transformed into sugar by the activity of ptyalin in the mouth.