Inhaled Insulin for Diabetics is as Effective as Injections
About 16 million people in our country have diabetes. Nearly one in ten adults over the age of 20 has diabetes. Among people over 60, it’s one in five. Chances are, somebody you know has this disease.
Currently, diabetics have to monitor their insulin levels and give themselves injections several times a day to keep it under control. But millions of diabetics don’t take insulin because they hate taking shots. Because of this, they risk severe health problems – from nerve damage and kidney failure to heart disease and blindness.
Now, a national study led by Jay Skyler, M.D. at our Diabetes Research Institute offers new hope to diabetics. This large-scale clinical trial – the first of its kind – compared the effectiveness of inhaled insulin to that of traditional injections to control type 1 diabetes. It’s still in its testing stages, but the results were very exciting: inhaled insulin was as effective as injections. It also worked for patients with type 2 diabetes.
Although patients still require a daily injection of insulin, they can take the inhaled form before meals. This dramatically reduces the number of shots they must take each day.
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This research holds great promise for the millions of people with diabetes. It’s only one of the many ways our scientists and researchers are working hard every day to improve people’s lives.
