Exubera, if it comes onto the market, could mean no more injections during the day for millions of diabetes patients. Exubera, rather than being injected, is inhaled – the patient gets his/her insulin dose by inhaling. Type 1 or 2 diabetics could benefit from this new mode of administering their insulin.

The patient wil still have to give a long-acting insulin by injection at bedtime – the inhaled insulin is taken with each meal.

The US advisory panel says it supports the approval of Exubera, produced by Pfizer, Inc, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. The panel voted 7-2 in favour of the new drug. The FDA tends to go along with what the panel advises.

Many experts say that inhaling insulin will help make sure that patients are more likely to take their insulin regularly. Many people do not like taking injections several times a day – consequently, many miss some of their doses.

18 million people in the USA take insulin regularly. For them, this new drug would be a Godsend.

There are two types of diabetes – Type I and Type II

Type I

A patient with Type I diabetes does not produce insulin. He/she has no beta cells (in the Islets of Langerhan, in the Pancreas). Type I diabetes is treatable by adding extra insulin to the blood – however, it is currently incurable (exception being some cases of transplants). It is hoped that stem cell research, as well as recent advancements in transplant techniques, will eventually provide a safe and permanent cure. There have been some cases of successful transplants of beta cells. However, having a transplant brings along with it problems in the immune system (you have to take immunosuppressant drugs for life to avoid rejection, these have side-effects).

Type II

A patient with Type II diabetes cannot use the insulin he/she produces properly. This type of diabetes can be improved, and even cured, with diet, exercise and weight loss. Obese people have a higher risk of developing Type II diabetes than people of normal weight.

It must be pointed out that Type I diabetes is not the result of lifestyle (unlike Type II). A patient with Type I is unlucky, he/she does not have Type I as a result of eating too much and getting fat and unfit.

Written by
Christian Nordqvist
Editor – Medical News Today