(Web Desk) - For many people with diabetes, managing their blood sugar levels requires daily insulin shots — but now, scientists have invented a new polymer-based gel that can deliver insulin through the skin without needles.
The gel, described in a November study in the journal Nature, normalized the blood sugar levels of diabetic mice and pigs within one to two hours of application. The animals' blood sugar then stayed in a normal range for approximately 12 hours.
The gel's speed and long-term effects are comparable to that of "basal" insulin shots, which deliver a steady dose that stabilizes blood sugar between meals and overnight.
These are typically used together with fast-acting insulin that's used just before, during or after meals to control big spikes in blood sugar triggered by food.
The gel is "mechanistically elegant," said Suchetan Pal, an associate professor and head of the Biomaterials Laboratory at the Indian Institute of Technology Bhilai, who was not involved in the research.
However, for now, it is still strictly experimental. To date, the gel has been tested only on mice and pigs and not on people, Pal told Live Science in an email. Human skin — which is variable in its thickness, fat content and pH — may behave differently than animal skin.
Human skin's outer layer, the stratum corneum, is only about 10 to 15 micrometers thick, thinner than a human hair. But the dead cells and fats that make up the layer form a shield that's tough to penetrate. While some small molecules can cross this barrier, larger proteins, like insulin, normally cannot.
The team behind the study overcame this challenge by engineering a pH-responsive polymer, which they call OP.