insulin

There are few better emblems of the failures of the US system of medical care than its inability to consistently provide insulin to Americans who need it. The drug was discovered 100 years ago, and it provides essential and ongoing treatment for millions of people living with diabetes, one of the most common chronic diseases in the country. And yet one in six Americans with diabetes who use insulin say they ration their supply because of the cost. Some people end up spending nearly half of their disposable income on a…

Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas that regulates blood sugar levels in the body. A new study conducted by the University of Würzburg suggests that exercise could curb the production of this hormone.Insulin is a vital hormone that plays a crucial role in regulating sugar metabolism in humans and other organisms. The mechanisms by which it performs this task are well understood. However, less is known about the control of <span class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt"…

Insulin is a hormone that plays a critical role in the regulation of glucose (sugar) levels in the blood. It is produced by the pancreas and helps the body use glucose for energy. In individuals with diabetes, the body is either not producing enough insulin or is unable to use it effectively, leading to high blood sugar levels.Researchers at WEHI have solved a century-old question in diabetes research by discovering that a molecule other than insulin can have the same effect. This provides valuable information for the…

In an ideal world, managing diabetes wouldn’t involve insulin injections but would be as simple as popping a pill. Now a team of scientists has demonstrated an oral tablet that’s self-propelled by chemical “micromotors” to deliver insulin in the colon of rats.People living with diabetes have to carefully manage their glucose levels, usually by periodically administering insulin injections. An oral pill would be much simpler, of course, but unfortunately insulin is a fragile molecule that breaks down in the stomach acid…

Insulin shots are no longer relevant thanks to a new robotic tablet, Robocap A novel medication capsule created at MIT will be able to replace insulin injections by delivering the treatment’s components through a robotic capsule that spins and tunnels through the small intestine’s mucus barrier. Protein medications would have to be administered intravenously since they cannot pass through the mucus lining of the digestive tract. Giovanni Traverso, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and development…

Regular insulin injections to keep blood-sugar levels in check are a harsh reality for many sufferers of diabetes, but ongoing progress towards oral alternatives offer cause for optimism. Scientists in Australia have opened up some new possibilities in this space, by identifying a molecule that activates receptors in a similar way to insulin, thereby laying new foundations to explore digestible drugs that mimic its effects.While the idea of an insulin pill is a promising one, this type of treatment for diabetes has been…

With type 1 diabetes, the body attacks itself. A person’s own immune system destroys the pancreas over time, leaving the critical organ unable to produce insulin and regulate blood sugar. Almost 1.9 million people, including about 244,000 children, live with the life-alteringillness. It is a disease with no cure or means of preventing it, and the only effective treatment is lifelong monitoring and insulin injections.But now, for the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug to delay the inevitable.…

Pharma company Eli Lilly has been criticized heavily in the past for the price of insulin, but the company has claimed it is not profiting off those increases.Photo: Darron Cummings (AP)As much as last week’s $8 Twitter verification chaos warped many public faces into gross parodies of their sterilized brands, one pharma company that has long hiked the price of a life-saving drug was caught in the crossfire and may have lost millions because of one fake post. New reports reveal just how much chaos one single tweet from a…

MIT developed a robotic pill that might be used to administer large protein drugs orally Drug distribution has been one of the most challenging medical research discoveries, and there are still a number of obstacles, including surviving the stomach’s acidic areas, digestive enzymes, and—most importantly—the mucus barrier that borders the digestive canal. MIT researchers have discovered a fresh approach. They’ve developed a robotic pill that might be used to administer large protein drugs like insulin…

Technology that delivers insulin orally rather than via regular injections would be a game-changing advance in medical science, and MIT scientists have been working fervently toward this aim over many years. Their latest creation is a drug capsule that uses a robotic, tunneling head to burrow its way through the mucus in the small intestine, giving insulin a direct route to cells.The difficulty in orally administering large protein drugs like insulin is tied to the inhospitable environment in the digestive tract.…