Scripps Health studying once-per-week insulin shot for type 2 diabetics – ABC 10 News San Diego KGTV

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SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Chris Sheridan’s been doing the same thing for the last 20 years — waking up at the crack of dawn to check his type 2 diabetes and administer his insulin shot.
“So normally, I’m getting up at about 4:30 every morning and I’ll be checking my blood sugar,” Sheridan said. “I would then inject myself that morning.”
He added, “It was hard at first. The first five or seven years, I didn’t really follow what I was supposed to do because I was like, ‘Diabetes can’t hurt me. It can’t do anything.’ Once you have everything controlled, it becomes a lot easier,” Sheridan said.
Sheridan, like the plenty of others with type 2 diabetes, may soon be in luck to break this day after day after day cycle.
Physicians at the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute are studying to see if a new type of insulin shot can be just as effective as the one those with type 2 diabetes are currently using.
“Is that enough to help manage your diabetes, the blood sugars keep them under control and without causing excess hypoglycemia which can be dangerous?” said Dr. Athena Philis-Tsimikas of the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute.
And the answer to the $64,000 question is yes.
“That’s something that we weren’t necessarily expecting because they do exactly the same thing and patients were targeted to achieve the exact same goal. And yet, the group receiving the once weekly actually had a better outcome than the once-daily group,” Philis-Tsimikas said.
While it’s still too early to tell if this could cut costs of those using the new insulin, Philis-Tsmikias told ABC 10News there could be a possibility.
“But if you think about it, the number of pens that you need, the number of, maybe, syringes that you need for these kinds of injections would be less. So, is there an opportunity for maybe lower costs? I think there could be,” Philis-Tsimikas said.
Picture Sheridan, who participated in the study, not having to do this once a day but once a week.
For Sheridan, he thinks this possible new shot can close one chapter and open a new one for current and new type 2 diabetics.
“I’m going to have to all of a sudden do all of this stuff every single day, multiple times a day. If they can get out and just do one prick a week for injecting you insulin, it’s going to make it that much easier. And it’s going to make life so much easier for people,” Sheridan said.
Philis-Tsimikas told ABC 10News that physicians are working on a similar study for those with type 1 diabetes as well.

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