ORAL INSULIN PILL REPLACES DIABETIC INJECTIONS!
INSULIN-dependent diabetics may soon be able to swap painful, inconvenient and expensive injections for an easy-totake pill!
Researchers at the University of British Columbia say they’ve developed a game-changing oral insulin that acted just like the injected drug in lab tests. “These exciting results show we are on the right track in developing an insulin formulation that will no longer need to be injected before every meal,” says
Dr. Anubhav Pratap-Singh. About 1.5 million Americans have type 1 diabetes, in which the pancreas fails to naturally produce the blood sugar– regulating hormone insulin, requiring regular injections of the life-saving substance.
In type 2, which affects more than 35 million in the U.S., the body develops a resistance to insulin or doesn’t produce enough to appropriately lower damaging blood sugar levels. It may be treated with oral drugs or injectables — including insulin.
In the UBC study, the researchers tackled the main stumbling block for oral insulin — how well it can be absorbed by the body. Instead of a swallowed pill, the UBC team’s medication is dissolved between the gum and cheek, which allows the insulin to penetrate the thin membrane lining the mouth. Injected insulin typically takes effect within 30 minutes to two hours — with the entire dose going straight to the liver to do its job, say the researchers. But many swallowed tablets under development see most of their dose wasted in the stomach and have a slow absorption rate with insulin being released over two to four hours.
In the new study with rats, the UBC oral delivery tablet rivaled the efficacy of injected insulin — being absorbed and released after half an hour, lasting two to four hours and traveling directly to the liver!
“This is the ideal target for insulin and what we wanted to see,” says researcher Yigong Guo. While the tablet awaits human trials, the exciting findings are a step forward in creating accessible and lower cost treatments, adds Pratap-Singh.