NEEDLE-FREE INSULIN MAY COME FOR DIABETICS, RESEARCHERS SAY.Byline: Ronald Kotulak Chicago Tribune Chicago Tribune Daily newspaper published in Chicago. The Tribune is one of the leading U.S. newspapers and long has been the dominant voice of the Midwest. Founded in 1847, it was bought in 1855 by six partners, including Joseph Medill (1823–99), who made the paper A new method of delivering drugs inside the body may enable 700,000 diabetics in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. to throw away their needles someday. The technique's versatility also has the potential to make gene therapy as easy as swallowing a pill and to turn some failed drugs into medicinal superstars. By cramming The unauthorized addition of services to your telephone bill such as an 800 number that you never ordered. The charges are usually noted on the bill, but are identified in a cryptic manner and/or are printed in a place that is easy to overlook. See slamming. insulin, drugs and genes into microscopic plastic beads, Brown University researchers successfully overcame two major roadblocks that reduce the effectiveness of many drugs: their destruction by the digestive system and their inability to move from the intestine into the bloodstream. The digestive-system barrier bedevils drug makers who develop new compounds that work well in the test tube but fail to have any effect in humans. Insulin, for example, has to be injected to bypass the digestive system and get to the bloodstream. That problem may be overcome with the biodegradable biodegradable /bio·de·grad·a·ble/ (-de-grad´ah-b'l) susceptible of degradation by biological processes, as by bacterial or other enzymatic action. bi·o·de·grad·a·ble adj. plastic beads, Edith Mathiowitz, an associate professor of medical science and engineering at Brown, reported in today's issue of the British journal Nature. Only one-tenth the width of a human hair, the beads protect protein from the digestive process and ferry insulin into the bloodstream, she said. The microscopic beads have been tested only in animals and testing in humans may not come for two to five years, Mathiowitz said. Questions about precise dosing and effectiveness have to be ironed out, but ``the idea of an oral delivery system is exciting and the potential is enormous,'' said Dr. Gerald Bernstein, vice president of the American Diabetes Association The American Diabetes Association, or the ADA, is an American health organization providing diabetes research, information and advocacy. Founded in 1940, the American Diabetes Association conducts programs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, reaching hundreds of and an associate clinical professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
The Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) is a graduate school of Yeshiva University. It is a private medical school located in the Jack and Pearl Resnick Campus of Yeshiva University in the Morris Park in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . To make the tiny beads, Mathiowitz mixes insulin, drugs or genes in a special liquid plastic solution. A chemical is then added that causes the mixture to solidify into microscopic spheres. The tiny beads stick to cells in the lining of the intestine, gradually working their way through and into the bloodstream, where they slowly disintegrate dis·in·te·grate v. dis·in·te·grat·ed, dis·in·te·grat·ing, dis·in·te·grates v.intr. 1. To become reduced to components, fragments, or particles. 2. and release prescribed medicine, she said. Testing insulin-encapsulated beads, Mathiowitz found they were capable of keeping glucose levels normal in diabetic rats given a large dose of sugar. In untreated rats, sugar caused their blood levels of glucose to soar. Dicumarol is a potent drug that prevents blood from coagulating to form clots. Taken orally, most of it is swiftly digested and only a small amount gets into the blood. But when encapsulated in plastic beads, the amount of drug that gets into the bloodstream is increased by 112 percent, Mathiowitz said. |
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