Not much difference between human insulin and other drugs

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Fast-acting artificial insulin is as good as human insulin but it is not clear what the long-term effects are.
There is a new class of drugs for diabetes, called insulin analogs, which are synthetic versions of insulin differing in just a few aspects of chemical structure. They are absorbed more quickly than human insulin and are injected before or after eating to control the mealtime rise in blood sugar.

A study from the University of Graz suggests that insulin analogs give a slightly lower blood sugar than regular insulin. However, the existing studies which were analyzed did not give information on the potential long-term effects of insulin analogs. How do they impact on complications like kidney failure or heart disease, for instance? Until these questions are answered, there is no obvious reason for prefering the insulin analogs. However, most newly diagnosed diabetics are put on insulin analogs. Follow up research should help establish if this is the best clinical decision.

Source
Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006 Issue 2

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