Uncontrolled diabetes is known for making you thirsty, often urinate and moody (thanks to the blood glucose swings). What it’s not known for, though, is way more interesting.

Here are 10 facts about diabetes that are sure to shock you.

#1 Doctors Taste Tested Urine

Yup, you read that right. In ancient times, before much was known about diabetes, doctors used to test the urine of patients that had the telltale signs of diabetes. They were able to diagnose the patient based on how sweet the urine was.

#2 Starvation as Treatment

In the early 1900s, health professionals recommended a starvation diet to reduce type 2 diabetes symptoms and prolong the life of diabetics.

#3 Five Weeks to Live

In the 1700s (and probably even before then), people would usually only survive another five weeks or so after being diagnosed with what is now known as type 1 diabetes.

#4 No Pancreas = Sweet Urine

In 1922, researchers discovered that the pancreas played an important role in diabetes. How? Researchers had removed the pancreas in dogs to study how digestion was affected. What they found, by accident, was that suddenly the dog urine attracted heaps of ants due to the high glucose content in the urine.

#5 First Known Symptom was Frequent Urination

As early as 1552 BC, the first recorded symptom of diabetes was frequent urination, though at the time, they had not yet fully understood or even named the disease.

#6 Melting of Flesh

In the first century AD, Greeks described the disease as a “melting of flesh and limbs into urine.”

#7 Homemade Brown Sugar

In 1776, Matthew Dobson, a physician who studied diabetes, discovered that evaporated urine of diabetics looked (and tasted) a whole lot like brown sugar.

#8 Eat More Sugar

In the late 1850s, Pierre Adolphe Piorry, a French physician, recommended that diabetes patients increase their sugar intake significantly as a potential form of treatment for the disease. Obviously, this didn’t stand as a treatment.

#9 High Fat and High Protein

In 1797, John Rollo, a Scottish physician, makes the first dietary treatment plan for diabetes patients, recommending that they significantly increase their fat and protein intake and decrease their carbohydrate intake.

#10 Mysterious Emaciating Disease

In 1500 BC, ancient Hindu writings called what is now known as diabetes the “mysterious emaciating disease.” Once again, in recorded history, they also noted that ants were attracted to the urine of these people that would eventually die within a year of being informally diagnosed.

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