If some insulin (maybe a couple drops) got in your mouth by accident and ingested, will that affect/harm you/your bg’s??
I would not believe so. The reason insulin can’t be given orally is because it is destroyed in the digestive tract
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What if it enters the bloodstream via the tongue?
I am sure some insulin would survive and might be detectable in a lab setting.
However the level would be (IMHO) so small as to be of academic interest only.
For all practical purposes, I totally agree with Gary.
Note: This certainly is something drug companies have been looking at for years. One can find and read about clinical studies that have been done. Novo Nordisk has claimed they have solved the problem but that it would be too expensive to bring to market. Oramed appears to be in the stages of working this also. Perhaps they will be successful in bringing a valid product to market?
Inhaling insulin as powder using afrezza is very effective. The onset is faster than injectible insulin. As previously mentioned, oral insulin has been possibly tried by insulin companies with no success. Perhaps in the future using nanotechnology might work. Swallow them insulin nanobots.
No, it won’t hurt you.
If this were a viable means of ingesting insulin, we would all be using dissolvable insulin tabs/lozenges.
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For sublingual absorption, the particles have to be extremely small. That’s why only certain medications, vitamins and essential oils can be taken this way. Proteins, including hormones, are quite large, convoluted, twisty-turny things. I’ve never looked into it specifically, but I would imagine that the structure of insulin is just too large to be absorbed under the tongue.