Pedro L. Mangabeira Albernaz

My sons and daughters and a few nephews and nieces asked me to tell them stories of my family. Since we are in relative confinement for the COVID-19 virus, we had a live meeting through, that was very. I thought that it would be a good idea to retell this live meeting in my blog. I have already written about  Francisco Mangabeira, now I will talk about João Mangabeira. Francisco Cavalcanti Mangabeira, my great-grandfather, was a pharmacist, married to Augusta Mangabeira. They had many children. The eldest daughter was  called as “Pepé”, I do not know her rel name. But I know that she became a nun and was the Mother Superior of a convent in São Luís do Maranhão. There were three other daughters, Vina (Lavínia), Maria and Cecília (my grandmother). Francisco Mangabeira was one year older than João. The younger ones were Carlos, that the family called Yoyo, and Octavio. João was born in Salvador in June 26, 1880. João Mangabeira When he was 13 years old he joined t...

Many years ago I went to a meeting of the Neurootologic and Equilibriometric Society in Turku, Finland.  A physician from the upper New York State, Dr. William Updegraff [1], presented a paper about impaired carbohydrate metabolism and idiopathic Menière's disease. I was quite impressed with his insulin tolerance curves, based on the work of Dr. Joseph Kraft [2]. I became interested in this study and began to order glucose and insulin tolerance curves in my patients with a clinical suspicion of carbohydrate metabolic disorders. In a period of one year I collected 100 of these tolerance tests. In 1992 my associate and dear friend Yotaka Fukuda was working on a research project for his Doctorate thesis. He had to abandon the project, however, due to insurmountable difficulties and discussed the problem with me.  I offered him my collection of glucose and insulin tolerance curves, suggesting that he could use this material for his doctorate thesis. Yotaka Fukuda, between...