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Scientific efforts to create a non-invasive insulin pill are continuing. A new research takes a new approach, coating liquid insulin with a special enzyme that prevents stomach acid from breaking down, and the results are encouraging.
( Peter Stanic | pixabay )
Type 1 diabetics know that managing their disease can literally be thorny. Their disease requires daily injections of insulin, usually given as injections. But in the end, it may soon be a thing of the past.
A small document of information on type 1 diabetes: people with this disease do not produce enough insulin, a hormone that helps break down glucose into energy. So they have to inject it manually, in some cases several times a day.
A future without insulin injections
Most methods involve the use of a needle and a syringe, but there has been growing research around the world aimed at developing pills that can deliver insulin. without any injection. These studies are ongoing, but if they prove effective and safe, they could radically change the way of life of some 400 million people worldwide who treat the disease. Until now, none of these studies has been able to produce a commercially viable solution for the absorption of noninvasive insulin, but that is the ultimate goal.
"The injections are invasive, painful, and because of that there is a significant nonconformity among the [type 1] Patients who use insulin, "says Samir Mitragotri, of Harvard University, who co-authored the study.
Challenges of non-invasive insulin delivery
The biggest challenge in the administration of noninvasive insulin is the stomach, since insulin can be broken down by acids and enzymes before being used in the body. organization, explains Mitragotri.
As such, the researchers took a different approach. They first combined the choline and geranic acid together and put it in capsules made of material that can withstand the acid of the stomach, called a capsule coated. "Enteric" means that it can be dissolved in the small intestine.
They gave these capsules to six non-diabetic mice.
The researchers found that their blood glucose levels were rapidly decreasing, falling to about 38% in the first two hours and then to 45% after 10 hours.
The results were published on 25 June in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences newspaper.
The pills in question will not be available commercially anytime soon. They have only been tested on small animals up to now, and this could take several years before the start of clinical trials. The next step is to conduct longer term safety studies on larger animals. Hopefully, these results will be equally encouraging. If things are going well, a future where insulin injections are not needed may finally be possible.
"These studies will provide the information needed to support clinical trials in humans, which we hope will begin in three to five years," said Mitragotri.
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