Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New pill can deliver insulin

news.mit.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 260 posts

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#71

Post by lolc »

daeken wrote: post #26
RPLong wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What doctors and researchers get wrong about diabetes is that pin-pricks and injections are not even remotely bad. I don't know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. You get used to that within the first week of diagnosis. No, the unpleasant part of being diabetic is having to live every second of your life as an act of weighing how what you're currently doing is going to affect your blo…

> I don't know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. I'm diabetic and the sole reason I don't check my blood sugar (unless I think something is drastically out of whack) is that it takes me upwards of 30 minutes to do a finger prick for testing. My anxiety skyrockets and nothing I do can tell me that it's not going to be excruciating. Most of the time I end up having my wife do it, which…

Have you tried using the intermediate segments of the finger instead of the fingertips? It makes a big difference for me in pain perception. Drawing blood is a bit harder sometimes but I still prefer that over having to prick the sensitive tips. (Not that I fret over it. Luckily I lost that within a week of doing regular measurements.)

Hospital staff is surprised when they see where I draw blood but so far none told me to change it. I still let them prick the fingertips so they don't have to change their routine.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#72

Post by cowpewter »

m3nu wrote: post #17

For the case of T2D, eating fewer carbs may be more effective than later reducing it with expensive insulin and fancy MIT pills. I often hear good stuff about these guys: https://www.virtahealth.com/ (no affiliation) edit: clarify that Virta is treating T2D primarily.

Yeah, eating less carbs is great for T2s like me (I don't take insulin, I control my blood sugar with a keto diet and metformin).

For T1s, eating less carbs might reduce the amount of insulin they need, and make swings in blood sugar less likely, but they're still going to need some insulin.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#73

Post by phkahler »

To all the type II diabetics here, I'd suggest looking in to iodine. I'm not diabetic, but I started taking it for other reasons and as a side effect I seemed to have better blood sugar regulation. There are also doctors out there that claim it reduces insulin dependence.

I'm not claiming a cure, or even an actual treatment. Just want to point some people to something that most people have never heard of.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#74

Post by thejohnconway »

jayalpha wrote: post #49
RPLong wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What doctors and researchers get wrong about diabetes is that pin-pricks and injections are not even remotely bad. I don't know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. You get used to that within the first week of diagnosis. No, the unpleasant part of being diabetic is having to live every second of your life as an act of weighing how what you're currently doing is going to affect your blo…

"What doctors and researchers get wrong about diabetes is that pin-pricks and injections are not even remotely bad. I don't know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. You get used to that within the first week of diagnosis." Dude, you don't know many diabetics then. Companies spend billions of dollars to solve this problem.

I’m Type 1 and I agree with him. Injections are not a problem worth solving for me. It’s the constant mental grind of tight-rope walking blood sugar through balancing food, insulin, exercise, and random body events (that you never quite figure out) that is the problem.

Blood sugar testing is an annoyance, but the main problem is not the actual test, but the inadequacy if testing your sugars a few times a day as a method of control. There we do have solutions coming out; the latest generation of continuous blood glucose monitors are life-changingly good.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#75

Post by dotuser »

daeken wrote: post #26
RPLong wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What doctors and researchers get wrong about diabetes is that pin-pricks and injections are not even remotely bad. I don't know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. You get used to that within the first week of diagnosis. No, the unpleasant part of being diabetic is having to live every second of your life as an act of weighing how what you're currently doing is going to affect your blo…

> I don't know a single diabetic who cares about injections and blood sugar tests. I'm diabetic and the sole reason I don't check my blood sugar (unless I think something is drastically out of whack) is that it takes me upwards of 30 minutes to do a finger prick for testing. My anxiety skyrockets and nothing I do can tell me that it's not going to be excruciating. Most of the time I end up having my wife do it, which…

I was on a CGM (Dexcom) for about 3 months until my new insurance would not cover it. Even though it's convenient, it comes with its own set of problems - having to restock every month (with copays) got tiring and somewhat expensive compared to strips. I also had false low reads a number of times. And the amount of wasted plastic (the applicator gun) is concerning if you are environmentally conscious.

As for lancets, you might want to try the AccuCheck fastclix. It's a pen shape device with a cartridge that holds 6 lancets. One cartridge can last me a couple months as I tend to use the same lancet 10 or more times (I know, probably not recommended). It's also the most painless lancet I've ever used and it's easy to carry around.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#76

Post by agumonkey »

samcday wrote: post #4

> Once ingested, water dissolves a disk of sugar, using a spring to release a tiny needle made up almost entirely of freeze-dried insulin. The needle is injected into the stomach — which the patient can’t feel, owing to a lack of pain receptors in the stomach. Once the injection has occurred, the needle can break down in the digestive tract. That's some pretty impressive ingenuity. Also sounds kinda terrifying if the…

I'd have hoped for needle-less operations (lack of pain is not the best of arguments).

That said when MEMS meets medicine there could be a vast change.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#77

Post by thejohnconway »

m3kw9 wrote: post #59

I’m hoping Apple will pull out a miracle and able to measure blood sugar with the Apple Watch. With that data, people can make apps to do really cool things to help that person out.

We already have continuous blood sugar monitors that are good, and work with Apple Watch. The invasiveness of the patch is not a big deal in my opinion given the benefits.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#78

Post by _uhtu »

arkades wrote: post #41

If this is at all attractive to people, it's going to make insulin so damned expensive. The price of insulin is already rising: there aren't all that many generic manufacturers of it, leaving them in a competition-free market. If this takes off it's going to suck up a good chunk of the marketplace, and probably leave us with maybe one or two generic manufacturers - enough to have an effective monopoly. Insulin prices…

Manufacturing insulin isn't under patent or a trade secret is it? If the price of insulin rises, then manufacturing insulin becomes more economically viable, so new players will enter the arena, thus driving the price down.

Is there any reason this wouldn't be subject to the normal laws of supply and demand?

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#79

Post by shiftoutbox »

visava wrote: post #67

Plant based diet can reverse diabetes ( I and II ). For type I milk products need to be stopped. Take 1% of your bodyweight as fruits. Take 1 % of your body weight as Raw ( uncooked ) vegetables. Take 10% of that vegetable quota as green leafy vegetables. Based on China Study by Colin Campbell. e.g. weight 150 pounds 1.5 pounds fruits before 1 pm 1.5 pounds raw vegetables for the day If you are still hungry you can e…

No that can help with Type 2 diabetes only Not Type 1, or 1.5 ( A/k/a Flatbush Diabetes). The rest of the posters are talking about Type 1 or t1d, which is currently an incurable reaction to a yet unidentified pathogen . Your body attacks and destroies the pancreases ability to create insulin. The current method of management of T1D take synthetic insulin, insulin extracted from pigs , or genetically engineered insulin , check your blood sugar. Limit what you eat to limit how much insulin you need to take. As so on. Eating fruits , grains as a t1d with out taking insulin will kill you! .

  By the way there is a study about how 46.5% of all studies are just made up.

Re: New pill can deliver insulin

#80

Post by lm28469 »

arkades wrote: post #41

If this is at all attractive to people, it's going to make insulin so damned expensive. The price of insulin is already rising: there aren't all that many generic manufacturers of it, leaving them in a competition-free market. If this takes off it's going to suck up a good chunk of the marketplace, and probably leave us with maybe one or two generic manufacturers - enough to have an effective monopoly. Insulin prices…

> The price of insulin is already rising

That really is a sad state of affair, insulin is cheap to produce and we shouldn't live in a world where such a basic medicine is controlled by for profit organizations.

At least in countries with a proper health system the cost isn't impacting on an individual level.

https://beyondtype1.org/how-much-does-it-cost-to-produce-ins...

Post reply on HN