Where does insulin come from?!
Question: Well I have type one diabetes. Also, I'm a vegetarian.
Well today I asked my mom where insulin comes from.
She said there are two different kinds.
Pork, and human.
So is this true?
Does this mean all of this time I have been a vegetarian, I have been giving my self insulin from pigs?
Can I do anything? Is it all pork insulin?
I use humalog..
Also, what about lantus?
Please help me here.
No rude comments either please.
Answers: Well I have type one diabetes. Also, I'm a vegetarian.
Well today I asked my mom where insulin comes from.
She said there are two different kinds.
Pork, and human.
So is this true?
Does this mean all of this time I have been a vegetarian, I have been giving my self insulin from pigs?
Can I do anything? Is it all pork insulin?
I use humalog..
Also, what about lantus?
Please help me here.
No rude comments either please.
they produce insulin via recombinant DNA technology.wat they do is actually cut the insulin encoded gene from human chromosome and insert into a fast growing(reproducing) bacterial DNA(e.coli)..this way we get large amount of insulin in less time..
and the products u r talkin abt..
humalog and lantus...are both human insulin gene product,produced by E.coli.
Insulin is produced by our bodies and by the bodies of other animals AND by chemical lab reactions. The insulin you get is most likely not from pigs because nearly all insulin today is snythetic and manufactured by pharmaceutical companies. I don't know about humalog or lantus.
No humalog is not a pig insulin.
It is human, hence the name humalog. It is made through recombinant DNA technology. Before this technique was invented insulin was either pig or bovine.
edit:
Iantus is also a rDNA human insulin
Yeap, learned about it a long time ago.
of course it depends how long youve had diabetes, because now adays with modern tech. they make it synthetically i believe.
synthetic means its fake if you didnt know
of course there could still be RDNA, or RNA (i think) based ones.
which means its human, which might be why its called humalog (i use it too)
you can look on the box and in small print i think itll say like "RNA" followed by something
Today's insulin products are, for the most part, synthetic.
That is, they are manufactured by a genetic recombinant emthod using bacteria which pattern the original gene which designs the insulin molecule.
most veggies or vegans shoul have no prob with this.
-Dr Max Bulmash
If you are a patient in the USA, none of the old animal insulins have been prescribed for more than 10 years!!
Take heart, Lantus and humalog are both chemical compositions. They are made from E.coli synthesis in the labs, and never from animals sources.
http://www.aventis.com will give you the answers to this question much better than I can in this limited space.
Don't worry, You are not taking Porcine or Bovine insulins!!!