June 29, 2018.

What if diabetics did without daily insulin shots? American researchers are trying to develop a capsule to swallow.

A capsule to replace the injections

People with type 1 diabetes are forced to control their blood sugar levels then give themselves, through an injection, the precise dose of insulin their body needs to regulate blood sugar levels. It is a binding habit.

Scientists have been looking for many years to replace that daily sting. In particular, a patch was discussed in 2012. This time, American researchers are trying to develop an insulin capsule to be taken orally.

The constraints of oral administration

If clinical trials have not yet reached the human stage, the first results are encouraging and offer great hope to diabetics who could gain in quality of life. Two main obstacles were revealed to the researchers: the acidity of the stomach and absorption by the intestine. The insulin dose reaches the blood too slowly or too slowly.

Harvard scientists then found an acid-resistant capsule that dissolves in the intestine, where it can then release the fluid containing the insulin which must then reach the blood. In rats, the tests are satisfactory, this solution remains to be tested on other animals and then, in a longer term, on humans.

Maylis Choné

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