The prospect of removing the need for daily insulin injections would mean a lot to many people with diabetes. The American study, which is published in The Lancet, found that patients using the inhalers could cut out the need of an insulin jab before meals. For people trapped within this subculture the needle is not just an irksome necessity, but a symbol of their bondage to an invisible parasite. Professor Edwin Gale Patients inhaled their insulin three times a day and had a single injection just before bed. The researchers found that the inhalers proved very popular with patients.
Patients often reject multiple-injection programmes as inconvenient and burdensome.
But Professor Edwin Gale, from the diabetic medicine division of medicine at the University of Bristol, said that although the research is promising that the sample group of 73 patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus was too small. He said inhalers could provide a hope for diabetics and a promise of a more normal life style. Diabetes is intangible yet all-pervasive, and alters the whole context within which an individual lives his or her life. It changes the self-image, the social relations, the daily existence, the hopes and dreams of those who are affected. The medical community should therefore join with them in celebrating this small step forward in the knowledge that when the hype subsides the hope will remain.