Pill To Replace Insulin

[Gabby123]

My brother's Endo told him today that in a year or so we will probably have a pill instead of insulin shots. Anyone else hear this. I don't take insulin and hope I never do because I faint at shots even as a kid.Just wondering if anyone else heard this?

[princesslinda]

Wow...haven't heard of this. I'll bet it would have to be a sublingual type pill like nitroglycerine to get the levels up quickly. Would be nice though.

[wiseguy]

From what I have found on this subject it appears that an insulin pill may be quite some time away. It is much more likely that an insulin patch will be on the market way before a pill. Their is, however, an insulin inhaler (Exubera) available now.

[lgvincent]

I was under the impression that stomach acid destroys insulin and that's the reason there is no such product on the market now.

[rzrbks]

Wish in one hand and uh...... hmmmmm............ah, "Spit" in the other and see whioch one fills up first.







No More Insulin Shots: Pills, Skin Patch, Mouth Spray, Inhalants on Horizon for People with Diabetes

6/17/2002

THE INSULIN PILLS

Considerable interest at the meeting focused on reports of the first two oral pills shown to work in humans.

"In the past, an insulin pill was useless because the molecule was too large to get through the membrane in the gut or was degraded there," said Richat Abbas, Ph.D., director of Biopharmaceutics, Emisphere Technologies, in a recent interview. The company's oral delivery agent facilitates absorption to the liver and then the systemic circulation with maximum insulin concentrations seen within 15 to 25 minutes, thus mimicking the physiological production and excretion of insulin from the pancreas. In a Phase I study evaluating the safety and tolerability of the capsule, neither a plain insulin pill nor the delivery agent alone had any impact on insulin levels; however, insulin combined with the delivery agent provided insulin absorption at clinically significant levels.


Article continues

Science Blog -- No More Insulin Shots: Pills, Skin Patch, Mouth Spray, Inhalants on Horizon for People with Diabetes (http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/K/3/pub3036.html)

[wiseguy]

No More Insulin Shots: Pills, Skin Patch, Mouth Spray, Inhalants on Horizon for People with Diabetes

6/17/2002

THE INSULIN PILLS
That article is over four years old! It goes on to mention research on the inhaled insulin which has now been approved and is being prescribed.

[rzrbks]

That article is over four years old!

Exactly



The point being that they've been talking about this "miracle" for quite a long time now......................Still ain't no pill on the horizon.