Diabetes mellitus: A journey of insulin

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic ailment that impairs the production of or response to insulin, a hormone that helps to convert food into energy. Its complications are responsible for excess morbidity and mortality, loss of independence and reduce quality of life. Among the major cause of disablement and early death are ischemic heart disease, retinopathy, nephropathy, peripheral vascular disease and neuropathy. Insulin replacement therapy has been used in the clinical management of diabetes mellitus for more than 85 years. As subcutaneous injection is a painful episode so various approaches like transdermal, pulmonary, intranasal, colon targeted delivery, oral delivery is tried as an alternative way. Among them oral delivery is the challenging one because insulin cannot administered orally due to rapid enzymatic digestion in stomach. For oral delivery various technology, formulation and various modification approaches are going on. It is high time to invent an acceptable non-invasive insulin delivery for the diabetes to improve patient compliance and decrease the morbidity.Key Words: Insulin; Approaches; Obstacles; Route of administration; Non-invasive.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/icpj.v1i2.9447International Current Pharmaceutical Journal 2012, 1(2): 32-42