Insulin Injections

Oral Insulin: Drug Of The Future?

Diabetes is a hard to control disease, which occurs due to deficiency of insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that helps convert sugar, a component of all foods, into energy. In diabetes, the body is unable to produce or properly use insulin, resulting in too much sugar in the blood.

The pancreas to control blood glucose levels produces insulin. Blood glucose levels that are chronically too high can lead to kidney failure, cardiovascular disease and blindness, among other complications. Glucose levels that are too low can cause bouts of hypoglycemia, whereas symptoms include confusion, dizziness and even unconsciousness.

People with Type I diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes, don't produce insulin at all. To control their blood sugar, current treatment guidelines recommend they give themselves an injection of insulin before each meal. Some Type II diabetics, whose bodies do not use insulin efficiently, need injections as well. Mostly, Type II diabetics can control the disease with diet and exercise.

But some diabetics have to inject themselves daily with insulin to help regulate blood sugar levels. These shots are uncomfortable, painful and a big hindrance to many in their daily life.

For this reason scientist had been trying to develop a pill to solve this problem, because consuming a pill would be much easier than taking a insulin shot. If researches in this direction are fruitful, then daily insulin injections for diabetics could soon become a thing of the past.

An insulin pill would be a tremendous advance in managing diabetes, but actually developing a pill that will be effective is an enormous challenge.

Depending on what food you've eaten, the rate of absorption in the intestines can vary quite a bit. This could be a problem because diabetics rely on precise amounts of insulin to maintain blood sugar levels.

It is said that some of the insulin dependant diabetics have to give themselves three injections a day and there have many attempts to replace these with oral insulin. But these attempts failed because the harsh acids in the mouth, throat and stomach destroy too much insulin.

A chemistry student in America has come up with a new material, which he says could soon allow people with diabetes to take their insulin orally in the form of a pill. This new material, a polymer with a gel-like consistency, is thought to be more effective because it protects the insulin until it reaches the small intestine, where it is absorbed into the blood. In this pill, because the small intestine was less acidic it enabled the polymer to swell and release the insulin.

There have been preliminary tests on animals that are promising and show that up to 16% of the insulin can now be carried to the bloodstream, compared to the 0.1% previously.

Many experts agree that this is very interesting research and this might make life easier for people with diabetes. Scientists hope that this research will lead to the introduction of insulin pills and other products onto the market.

Few scientists believe they found a way to make an insulin pill for diabetics. This is a new acrylic-based, gel-like coating on the pills to improve the body's absorption of insulin.

But this pill is so far tested only in diabetic rats and dogs. This product is likely to make it to the market within the decade.

Although a good effect of this pill is seen in different studies, it still very early to predict anything in favor of the drug. Patients are insisted to follow their physician’s orders for better health management.