New Insulin Can Be Administered Before or After Meals

Although regular human insulin must be injected 30 minutes before a meal, new findings show that insulin aspart (of rDNA origin) can be administered in patients with type 1 diabetes just before or just after a meal. ?An individual with type 1 diabetes needs to calculate an insulin dose based on the amount of carbohydrate to be consumed in a meal, and that?s often difficult to know or plan a half-hour before the meal is started,? explained Lois Jovanovic, MD, lead author of the study and director and chief scientific officer of Sansum Medical Research Institute. ?Our findings further show that insulin aspart can be administered right after a meal, when the amount of carbohydrate consumed is known, permitting more accurate and flexible dosing,? she reported at the Annual Meeting of the American Diabetes Association. In the study, glycemic response was 25% lower when insulin aspart was given before rather than 15 to 20 minutes after a meal, but both regimens produced an adequate postprandi-al glycemic control.