Insulin that you SPRAY on skin to control diabetes
AN INSUlIN body spray could banish the need for jabs to treat diabetes. A trial with patients is due to start in Norway to see if the spray can control blood-sugar levels as effectively as the injections do.
Patients squirt the insulin directly on to their inner forearm, where skin tends to be thinner, allowing easier absorption. Within minutes, it gets absorbed into the bloodstream, where it helps cells mop up sugar from the blood to use as fuel for energy.
The spray — which comes in a handy pocket-sized container — could be an alternative for those who have to inject insulin up to three or more times a day.
Diabetes occurs when the pancreas — a pear-shaped organ that sits behind the stomach — stops producing insulin altogether; or its output drops sharply; or cells become resistant to the insulin that the body produces.
Without the right levels of insulin, blood-sugar levels can increase, causing irreversible damage to the kidneys, eyes, nerves and blood vessels.
More than 90 per cent of diabetes cases are type 2, which is associated with obesity and a sedentary lifestyle (although it can also run in families).
In many cases, type 2 can be well managed with lifestyle changes and daily tablets to control blood-sugar levels; but one in four patients ends up needing daily insulin injections.
Type 1 diabetes, meanwhile, is triggered when the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the pancreas so it stops making insulin — this means patients are dependent on insulin for life.
But the daily burden of jabs can take its toll.
According to Diabetes UK, one in three patients regularly misses their insulin jabs because they’re afraid of needles, or they don’t want to draw attention by injecting in public.
Regularly missing jabs raises the risk of increasing blood-sugar levels and long-term complications, such as heart disease, blindness and lower limb amputation due to the effects of high blood sugar on circulation.
Scientists have developed other methods for giving insulin.
One is an insulin pump, where the hormone is delivered through a tube in the tummy from a computerised pump worn on the waistband. But the pumps can cost up to £3,000 and are rarely available on the NHS.
Other researchers are working on skin patches packed with microneedles that punch holes in the skin to let insulin seep through.
The latest approach is even less invasive. The spray contains insulin and propylene carbonate, a chemical often used in cosmetic skin creams to help them penetrate the outer layers of the skin.
In this case, it’s hoped the chemical — attached to insulin in the spray droplets — will help the hormone seep as far as the tiny blood vessels that lie beneath the surface of the skin, where it will then be absorbed into the bloodstream.
Insulife, the Norwegian company developing the body spray, is setting up a trial involving 12 patients with type 1 diabetes to see how different doses of the spray compare with injected insulin in controlling bloodsugar levels. It is used just before a meal, like injected insulin.
The clinical trial was set up after a study involving five people found the spray reduced blood-sugar levels by about 20 per cent after a meal.
Dr Hood Thabit, a consultant diabetologist at Manchester Royal Infirmary, said it’s not clear yet how safe or effective the insulin spray will be, nor how much users would need to apply to get the desired effect on blood-sugar levels.
But he added: ‘If it is safe and effective then it might be an important step forward for those who suffer with needle phobia.’