INSULIN SUBSTITUTE

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6411, 6 November 1923, Page 5

INSULIN SUBSTITUTE

SUCCESS IN SIGHT. A cheap substitute for insulin, used in the treatment of diabetes, is being tested by a prominent London physician. The discoverer of synthetic insulin is a bio-chemist, Mr. Oliver A. Newell, who has carried out a great deal of curative sera. “Diabetine,” as I propose to call it, he said, “can be produced by the hundredweight if necessary. After the medical tests now proceeding have been completed—and from tests I have made myself I have no doubt as to their success—l propose to make it available to the public.” The physician mentioned his treating diabetic patients with the new substance, and is greatly impressed by the progress they are making. He believes the results will be as good as though insulin itself were used and is confident of success. “I shall know definitely within ten days or a fortnight,” he said. ,

The new synthetic substance, he explained, is a greenish powder, and it has two great advantages over insulin—firstly, because it is administered through the mouth, in a halfwineglassful of Water, instead of being injected through the skin by a syringe; and, secondly, because its cost is but a fraction of that of insulin, which is derived from the pancreas of sheep and other animals.

“What the discoverer has done,” he added, “is to find out the chemical constituents of insulin, and by mixing these chemicals to’gether he has produced a substance chemical identical with insulin. The new substance has this further advantage, it is quite harmless and a patient could drink any quantity of it without any ill-effects. It is very cheap to produce, and its discovery means that the new treatment of diabetes is brought within the reach of the poorer classes.”

The results so far, lie added, led him to believe that the improvement in patients would be permanent, and that once health had been restored the treatment could be discontinued.