Thursday July 5 10:21 AM ET
Israeli Researchers Deliver Insulin Via Pill
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli hospital has become the first to orally deliver insulin to the bloodstream of healthy humans, an advance researchers said on Thursday might soon improve the lives of 135 million diabetics worldwide.

Jerusalem's Hadassah University Hospital said insulin showed up in the liver and bloodstream of 12 non-diabetic volunteers within 30 minutes of ingesting the new pill. Currently, diabetics have to inject insulin into the bloodstream.

The new pill was developed by Emisphere Technologies, Inc., a New York biopharmaceutical company. It said in a statement that clinical trials had started on June 25 in Israel and The Netherlands.

Researchers plan to begin tests on adult diabetics, but no date has been set, the company statement said.

``That is the majority of people who suffer from diabetes,'' Dr. Miriam Kidron, a diabetes researcher at the hospital, told Reuters. ``As we get older, more people get the disease.''

Diabetes occurs when the body fails to either produce or properly use insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar. Type 2 diabetes, by far the most common form, usually hits middle-aged and overweight people. In that case, the body loses its sensitivity to the hormone, a condition known as insulin resistance.

While type 2 diabetes can sometimes be controlled with diet and exercise, oral drugs have been developed to prevent insulin resistance among these patients. However, about one third must still inject insulin on a regular basis, Kidron said.

``Their diabetes will continue to be much better if they can get the insulin through the pill,'' Kidron added.

If more trials are approved by the Israeli Health Ministry, the pill will also be tested on people suffering from type 1, or juvenile, diabetes. People with type 1 diabetes produce no insulin and must inject the hormone in order to survive.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/200.../insulin_2.html