Diabetics, who need insulin injections daily, may now get some relief as A team of scientists of the National Immunology Institute of India, An autonomous institution under the Department of Biotechnology, government of India, has discovered a novel form of the hormone that can keep blood glucose levels down for up to three months.

The team, led by Avdesh Surolia, has discovered ‘Supramolecular Insulin Assembly-II (SIA-II)’, a form of the hormone, which is used for a sustained treatment of diabetes mellitus type-I or type-I diabetes. Its single dose to animal models of diabetes, such as rats, resulted in lower blood glucose levels to normal values for as many as for 120 days.

SIA-II, which is in the form of a prodrug - a chemical that undergoes changes in the body into a more active material - when injected releases just above basal levels of insulin into the blood in a sustained manner, Surolia said. This just above basal level of insulin is adequate to tackle the increase in blood glucose levels after meals and does not cause severe hypoglycaemia, a low sugar condition, in the morning, a condition faced by diabetics, he said.

According to Surolia, SIA-II upon injection forms a depot at the site, from where insulin monomers are released which act on the body’s cells to regulate uptake of glucose for months after a single injection. This is in contrast to the existing treatment method in which the patient needs to inject insulin at least twice a day for maintaining glucose levels. And even then blood glucose still increases between the meals as the insulin injected gets degraded very soon.
SIA-II is unique as it is continuously releasing insulin in the body regularly thereby affording a way to curb increases in glucose levels in between meals.

The technique is being seen as one with tremendous therapeutic potential and constitutes a new
way of treatment for diabetic patients. Experiments carried out by the group in the
laboratory have demonstrated that SIA-II acts as a pure and compact source of insulin and that the reason for its long-term bio-availability is its protection from destruction because of its presentation in a compact form.

The hormone insulin is the key regulator of energy and glucose metabolism in the body, besides
playing a role in development during growing up years. The fine balance of maintaining the required insulin concentrations in the blood is performed by pancreas. At present, diabetes afflicts nearly 200 million people across the world with a large chunk of patients being in India and China. The latest research is an attempt to address the issue of multiple injections.