Scientists have created a pill of insulin
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The research team has developed a pill that can deliver insulin to the body without the use of needles.
Scientists at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada have developed a pill that delivers the entire dose of insulin to the human liver. Previous attempts to take insulin by mouth were thwarted after large doses ended up in the stomach, where they do not provide any benefit.
Many diabetics require several doses of insulin to monitor their condition daily. Currently, the standard method of delivery is injection with small needles several times a day.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 37 million Americans — or more than one in ten — have diabetes. It is the eighth leading cause of death in America.
“These results show that we are on the right track in developing an insulin formulation that will no longer need to be injected before every meal, improving the quality of life as well as the mental health of more than nine million type 1 diabetics worldwide,” said Dr. Anubhav Pratap-Singh, UBC Associate Professor of Food Engineering and Principal Investigator of the study, said in a statement.
Researchers have developed a device that uses a thin membrane on the inside of a person’s cheeks and at the back of a person’s lips. This membrane provides a protective shell and allows the tablet to reach its destination without losing anything along the way.
Insulin is produced naturally in the pancreas and then passed to the liver, where it helps process sugar in the blood.
A person with type 1 diabetes does not produce enough insulin to control blood sugar, if at all. All type 1 diabetics require a certain dosage of insulin to manage their condition.
People with type 2 diabetes may also need to take insulin, as the amount of the substance their bodies naturally produce may not be enough to combat high blood sugar levels.
A standard insulin injection of 100 international units (IU) per shot. Because the vast majority of it is lost during ingestion, previous attempts to develop an insulin tablet had to contain around 500 IU to function properly.
This is highly inefficient and can make pills unjustifiably expensive – especially given how controversially expensive insulin has become in countries like the United States.
Christina DENYSYUK
Photo: Shutterstock / fizkes
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