Types of Insulin

[Streaming Well] [Diabetes Insulin] [Dr. Paul Stillman] One of the old-fashioned names for what we now call Type II Diabetes was non-insulin dependent diabetes, because it meant that you never needed to have injections of insulin. Firstly, that's wrong. It shows how progress has moved on, and second, I think it's great pity, because it was inherently denied 1 of the most important treatments which we can use for this condition. There will come a time for some, at least, of the sufferers from Type II Diabetes where they do need to have the oral medication supplemented with the most powerful way of reducing blood sugar, and that, of course, is injections of insulin. There are various types of insulins. You take short-term insulins, which work very quickly, and longer-term ones, which have a smoother, more progressive effect over a longer period of time. Some of them are artificially manufactured. Some of them are animal derived. Some of them are derived from human types. They all have their differences, and it'll be up to you and your professionals to work out what you need in terms of the various mix of the short and long acting, and the origin of the insulin which suits you best. It's up to them, your professionals obviously, to choose what they think is appropriate. It's up to you to keep a very close eye on your diabetic control and report back to them how things change. I said that insulins were injectable. But we also have to look to the future. One thing that's been in the media— in the newspaper and the television—recently, is the concept of an insulin pump. This is a very clever gadget. It's a piece of electronic, if you like, that's implanted under the skin, and it works in a similar way to the pancreas. What the pancreas does is to secrete—to manufacture— insulin and release it into the blood stream by a controlled mechanism that gives you the right amount to control your blood sugar. We haven't got quite that far yet. What the insulin pump does, as the name suggests, is it has a reservoir of insulin inside it, but it does have to be topped up, like all fuel tanks, if you like, once in a while. But then what it does is to measure the amount that's needed, and on a regulated amount, release that slowly into the blood stream in exactly the same fashion. The great advantage, of course, is that you don't have to inject. Injections, as we said, are nothing like as complicated or even as distressing as people think before they try them, but it's still something that is socially limiting and it's something that not many of us want to do. The insulin pump, I think, is just 1 example of the new technologies which are around the corner. Diabetes is an important condition, and there's a lot of research going on. That is just 1 example of the sort of things that I think we can look forward to. There may well be others.