Smart insulin?
It’s the newest development in the fight against diabetes, and quite possibly the closest we have come to a cure for Type 1 Diabetes.
Recently, scientists have developed a type of insulin that can respond to changing blood sugar levels in real-time, and it’s a real game-changer for those impacted by the disease.
Currently, those diagnosed with diabetes need to inject insulin multiple times a day, a laborious and sometimes painful process that makes it hard to live a normal life.
But “smart insulin” could change that, with the potential of needing to inject as little as once a week.
“Glucose-responsive — so-called smart — insulins are regarded as the holy grail of insulin,” said Tim Heise, vice-chair of the novel insulins scientific advisory panel for the Type 1 Diabetes Grand Challenge in the UK, told The Guardian. “They would come as close to a cure for type 1 diabetes as any drug therapy could.”
Research teams from the US, Australia, and China have worked to develop new insulin sources from those that lay dormant in the body which can be activated and deactivated as needed, mimicking what happens in a healthy body as blood sugar levels rise and fall.
Though it seems impossible to believe, millions of dollars has been given to the researchers in the form of grants as they continue to perfect the process.
Though effective drugs to combat the effect of diabetes exist, they just aren’t good enough, according to the teams.
“While insulin has been saving lives for over 100 years now, and previous research has driven important changes for people with type 1, it is still not good enough — managing glucose levels with insulin is really tough, and it’s time for science to find ways to lift that burden,” director of research partnerships at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation UK, Rachel Connor, told The Guardian.
They are looking to not just make managing blood sugar levels easier, they are hoping to change lives.
“We are hopeful that this research will lead to life-changing advancements in type 1 diabetes care,” Diabetes UK director of research Elizabeth Robertson added.
This would be a much better alternative to standard insulin, which stabilize blood sugar levels when they enter the body, but typically cannot help with future fluctuations, leading to multiple injections throughout the day.
Glucose-responsive insulins, on the other hand, only become active when there is a certain amount of sugar in the blood to prevent hyperglycemia (high blood glucose).
They become inactive again when levels drop below a certain point, avoiding hypoglycemia (low blood glucose).
“By imagining a world where insulins can respond to changing glucose levels in real-time, we hope these six projects will help to create that new reality, relieving people with type 1 of the relentless demands that living with this condition places on them today,” Conner said.
That sounds like it would be pretty sweet.
If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.