Oral Delivery Method in Controlling Blood Sugar Level in Diabetics

Oral delivery method of Insulin can change the whole view of controlling the diabetes and keep updating about one’s blood sugar level. It has promise to give a good quality of life up to 40million people with type 1 diabetes.  It also overcomes the side effects faced by the patients when they are unable to inject with insulin. Insulin is just injected to the subcutaneous layer of skin which is usually used therapy to check the blood sugar level, but many fail due to pain, phobia of needles etc.

As insulin is a protein, when it enters orally it reacts with the stomach's acidic environment and it is partially absorbed out of the intestine. This approach is adopted by inserting insulin in an ionic liquid which is composed of choline and geranic acid which is later filled inside a capsule with an acid-resistant enteric coating. The orally available insulin thus is biocompatible, easy to produce and has longer shelf life than the market available injectable insulin.

The insulin must pass through series of obstacles before it is absorbed into the bloodstream. The encapsulation of insulin in an enteric coating made the drug to overcome the degradation of drug by gastric acids. This coating only dissolves when it comes in contact with the alkaline environment in the small intestine. This intestine consists of many types of enzymes which degrades the protein into smaller amino acid. But the ionic liquid-borne insulin remains stable

The above formulation was considered to pass two final barriers those are a layer of thick mucus lining the wall of intestine and the tight junctions between walls of the intestine, which does not allow the large molecules like insulin to pass through them.

In order to surmount these barriers, -- the insulin molecule was re-engineered by coating it in protective polymers and addition of additives to prevent the degradation of drugs by enzymes. It is a boon in the development of drug delivery to give insulin by mouth. The remarkable achievement here is that insulin given orally combined with an ionic liquid works marvelously with respect to conventional injection.

Orally taken insulin mimics the process carried out in which the pancreas produces insulin and delivers to the liver. Here 80% of the insulin is extracted and remaining is circulated through bloodstream. It also slows down the adverse effects of injecting insulins over long period of time.

This orally available insulin can be produces in a single-step process which could be scaled up to produce in a huge quantity.

Animal testing were done to check its compatibility with human and also long-term toxicological and bioavailability studies were carried out. Approval for the clinical trials in humans can be gained easily because th ingredients used in the formulations are GRAS(Generally Regarded As Safe). FDA recommends the daily dose of Choline, which is an essential nutrient and geranic acid, present naturally occurring in cardamom and lemongrass can be is widely used as a food additive.