Insulin injection is one of the treatments for diabetes. At present, there are many types of insulin, and different types of insulin have different therapeutic effects and methods of use. Let’s take a look at the three long-acting insulins commonly used in clinical practice (insulin detemir, insulin glargine, and insulin deguulin) and their respective characteristics.
First look at the action time of the drug, see Table 1 (h in the table is the English abbreviation of hour).
From Table 1, we can see that the duration of insulin detemir is less than 24 hours, and it can be injected twice a day to maintain the basal plasma insulin level, and its peak effect is obvious, and the risk of night hypoglycemia is high. On the contrary, insulin degludec has a unique mechanism of prolonging its action, which has a half-life of up to 24 hours, which is twice that of insulin glargine, and has an action time of 42 hours, which can achieve the best effect of insulin once a day.
In terms of medication for special populations, see Table 2 for details.
It can be seen that insulin detemir is relatively safe for patients with gestational diabetes. There is no clinical trial of insulin deglut in children, pregnant women and lactating women, and its safety and effectiveness have not been established.
Regarding the adverse reactions of insulin, the common ones are hypoglycemia, weight gain, allergies, edema, blurred vision, lipoatrophy at the injection site, and subcutaneous fat hyperplasia. Among them, hypoglycemia is the most common adverse reaction. Studies have shown that the incidence of hypoglycemia of insulin degludec is lower than that of insulin glargine, and it is also the lowest of the three long-acting insulins. However, since insulin degludec is a relatively new preparation, more research is needed in terms of safety.
As for the preservation of insulin, sugar friends need to keep in mind: insulin that has not been opened for use can be stored for 2 to 2.5 years under refrigeration at 2 to 8C (provided that it is within the validity period); opened insulin can be stored at normal room temperature ( About 20C, no more than 25～30C) storage for 30 days, this time is enough for most patients to safely use up a whole insulin.
In short, diabetes is a complex long-term chronic metabolic disease. As a key drug, long-acting insulin plays an important role in improving blood sugar and reducing diabetes-related acute and chronic complications. What makes sugar friends happy is that all three long-acting insulins are currently included in the medical insurance catalog, giving doctors and sugar friends more choices. The author hopes that with the rapid development of science and technology, more effective drugs for the treatment of diabetes can be developed to benefit more sugar lovers.
