For the last 50 years, making insulin, a medicine for diabetes, has had some problems. But even with these problems, insulin is vital.
It helps around 537 million adults with diabetes across the globe.
Insulin is usually given through a needle or a device called an insulin pen. But these methods can sometimes cause problems. One major problem is that insulin can go into the blood too quickly.
This can lead to low blood sugar, which is not good for health. There are devices called insulin pumps that can give insulin more precisely and avoid this problem.
But these pumps are expensive and not many people can get them.
A New Solution from Plants
Recently, a new study by Henry Daniell from Penn’s School of Dental Medicine came up with a different way to give insulin. He and his team made a type of insulin that you can swallow and it comes from plants!
Regular insulin is missing one part that is found in natural insulin. But the insulin that Daniell’s team made has all parts and it can be swallowed.
When you swallow this insulin, the tough walls of the plant cells protect it from the acids in your stomach. The plant cell walls break down slowly in the gut and the insulin is released. From there, the insulin goes to the liver.
Test Results in Mice
Daniell’s team tested this new insulin in mice with diabetes. They found that it worked very similarly to natural insulin.
The blood sugar of the mice was under control within 15 minutes of swallowing the insulin. This was much better than insulin given by injections, which caused the blood sugar to drop too quickly.
Daniell explained that low blood sugar is a big problem with current ways of giving insulin. It can even lead to a coma.
But the plant-based insulin given by mouth works like natural insulin. This makes the risk of low blood sugar much lower.
Making Medicines from Plants
Daniell has been working on using plants to make proteins for a long time. In 2015, he showed that it’s possible to make a low-cost drug from lettuce for people with a disease called hemophilia.
He has also worked on plant-based medicines for other diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and polio. He even made a gum that reduces the virus that causes COVID-19 in saliva.
To make plant-based insulin, scientists put human insulin genes into lettuce. They used a “gene gun” to put the genes into the lettuce.
The genes then become a part of the lettuce’s own genes. The lettuce is then dried, ground up, and made ready to be swallowed, following FDA guidelines.
Advantages of Plant-Based Insulin
Making insulin this way is very different from the usual way, which involves growing it in bacteria or yeast. Daniell’s way does not need expensive equipment and the insulin can be kept at room temperature.
Daniell said that he’s seen news about vaccine doses being destroyed because some countries don’t have the resources to keep them cold.
His way of making insulin doesn’t have this problem because the insulin can be stored at room temperature.
What’s Next?
In the future, Daniell plans to test plant-based insulin in dogs and humans. Dogs can also get diabetes, and this new insulin could help them.
Daniell also believes that this new way of giving medicines could change the treatment for diabetes and other diseases. It could make medicines cheaper and better. He says, “Patients can get a superior drug at a lower cost.”
If you care about diabetes, please read studies that not all whole grain foods could benefit people with diabetes, and honey could help control blood sugar.
For more information about health, please see recent studies that blueberries strongly benefit people with metabolic syndrome, and results showing vitamin D could improve blood pressure in people with diabetes.
The study was published in Biomaterials.
Copyright © 2023 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
