Insulin cannot be taken orally because?
Hello, insulin is a protein that is broken down and digested in the body's digestive juices. For example, Prof. Xu said, we know that an egg can hatch chicks under the right environment, but if the egg is boiled or salted, it cannot hatch. In the same way, when insulin is "eaten", under the action of stomach acid and digestive enzymes, the proteins are denatured and decomposed, and lose their biological activity like pickled eggs. An important step on the road to success Prof. Xu said that Russian scientists have successfully developed oral insulin capsules with clever ideas, which technically solves the problem of protecting insulin from being inactivated by stomach acid and intestinal fluids. But this is not enough to bring oral insulin into practical use. The capsule is the first step towards the success of oral insulin. The next step is to address the question of how much insulin is absorbed after oral administration. Because oral drugs (including oral insulin) from the beginning of taking to play a role in the effectiveness of the drug, to go through several barriers. 1. Digestive inactivation, the results of the capsule can be more satisfactory solution to this problem. 2. Absorption. How much of the oral insulin is absorbed? Food, intestinal function, and other factors affect insulin absorption. This is the next step in the development of oral insulin, because insulin therapy requires precise dosage adjustment and dosing time. 3. Liver first-pass effect: Oral medications are not directly absorbed into the bloodstream after intestinal absorption, but are first metabolized by the liver, which again affects the accuracy of insulin dosage and the duration of action after administration. The accuracy of the insulin dose affects the effectiveness of glycemic control. How to control oral insulin dosage is a delicate task that needs to be further investigated. Absorption is another key Is absorption regular? How is the dose controlled? is another key to oral insulin. Oral insulin is different from injection, the absorption rate is different for different individuals and under different circumstances. It is necessary to administer the drug accurately and at the right time in order to control blood glucose satisfactorily. These problems must be solved before oral insulin can really be put into clinical use. Although we have been looking forward to the success of oral insulin, experts are worried that, unlike injections, injections can be precise to a few units of insulin dosage, while the oral form is not easy to be adjusted; the time of onset of action after taking insulin is not accurate, which may easily lead to waste of insulin and inaccurate dosage. The problem of absorption rate has not yet been solved, so there is still a long way to go between the successful experimental development of oral insulin and its practical application in the clinic. Relevant research in various countries In fact, research on non-injectable insulin has been continuously conducted in various countries around the world. Since the 1970s, researchers at Chongqing Medical University and other institutions in China have been conducting research in this area. Research has been going on all over the world, and progress has been made over the decades, but the goal of practical application in clinical treatment cannot be realized in the short term. Various insulin dosage forms have been tried and tested, including oral formulations, eye drops, nasal drops, suppositories and so on, and researchers have tried various ways to replace injection, but there is almost no breakthrough of practical clinical value. The Danish company Novo Nordisk has developed an insulin aerosol inhaler, which has gained initial success and will soon be used in the clinic. I hope the above information can help you, I hope to adopt, thank you.