Whats insulin made from?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Sugarbum

Sugarbum

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hey guys!

I was wondering if anyone could share what they know about how the industry make our insulins? Someone rendered me speachless today by saying that insulatard was made from fish sperm...! Am I being had?? (I used to use insulatard and that makes me nauseous! 😱)

I use Novorapid, I am really interested if someone knows how to put it into simple language a process of it being made or more about the product?

Cheers (I know there are a few brainiacs on here who can enlightening me with this! 🙂)

Louisa xXXx
 
Last edited:
wot wot wot???? 😱 you kid me???!
 
Wiki said:
Biosynthetic "human" insulin is now manufactured for widespread clinical use using genetic engineering techniques using recombinant DNA technology. More recently, researchers have succeeded in introducing the gene for human insulin into plants and in producing insulin in plants, specifically safflower. It is anticipated that this technique will reduce production costs.
Click to expand...

...................
 
"They added a protein found in fish sperm, protamine, which the body is able to break down slowly"

This is actually a really great link N, thanks. Explains everything really well. Tres interesting!

....but what in the name of that is holy would make someone think "I wonder what is in fish sperm, hmmmmm??"!
 
fish sperm - makes me think on a Friday evening!

But which type of fish? There are so many species, so many major groups (jawless, cartilaginous, bony) - now you've got me interested, having never really thought about fish sperm much, despite 3 years of Marine Biology degree and keeping tropical freshwater fish as a teenager. On the sperm topic, some fish participate in internal fertilisation, which makes livebearing of young possible, more have external fertilisation (eggs & sperm released into water, where they may or may not meet to fertilise each other and not many fish young survive to adulthood, because they get eaten)
 
Copepod said:
But which type of fish? There are so many species, so many major groups (jawless, cartilaginous, bony) - now you've got me interested, having never really thought about fish sperm much, despite 3 years of Marine Biology degree and keeping tropical freshwater fish as a teenager. On the sperm topic, some fish participate in internal fertilisation, which makes livebearing of young possible, more have external fertilisation (eggs & sperm released into water, where they may or may not meet to fertilise each other and not many fish young survive to adulthood, because they get eaten)
Click to expand...

Its a mad, mad thought isnt it? I shouldnt perhaps suggest it, but I had wondered how they would "harvest" it so to speak?!
 
salmon sperm

Harvesting sperm produced by fish that externally fertilise wouldn't be difficult - just get the fish out, then sieve the water - very small holes, as sperm is very small. But what type of salmon? - there are several species, some specific to Atlantic Ocean, some to Pacific, but all spawn externally in freshwater river / streams.
 
Oh my god, I think of it like this....if I was on "Im a celebrity- get me out of here" and I had to eat this "fish serm" as a task, I wouldnt EAT it....but here we are INJECTING it!!!

Copepod- does this mean there is a massive amount of fish being farmed specifically for this purpose? For our insulin? Or do they get it from fish being bred in fish farming for food purposes?
 
i sincerely hope it comes from fish being farmed for something else...as a vegetarian i hate the though that fish would be specifically bred to have their sperm taken from them...mind you it's not like they're taking their pancreases or anything...i guess fish can donate sperm without dying?
 
Sugarbum said:
Oh my god, I think of it like this....if I was on "Im a celebrity- get me out of here" and I had to eat this "fish serm" as a task, I wouldnt EAT it....but here we are INJECTING it!!!

Copepod- does this mean there is a massive amount of fish being farmed specifically for this purpose? For our insulin? Or do they get it from fish being bred in fish farming for food purposes?
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, they don't use it any more - at least not in the non-animal insulins. It was used to slow the action of the insulin - a sort of 'fish lantus' - but the manufactured insulins have different means of achieving this.🙂
 
salmonpuff said:
just saw this and it made me giggle...maybe I should change my username? salmonsperm :D
Click to expand...


Comedy!!! do it so it do it!!!!:D

Northener, I thought this is how insulatard is made? It is still in use.
 
more on fish sperm - but only if you really want to know

Shiv
I'm pretty confident that any male fish that externally fertilises - releases its sperm into the water where it may or may not come into contact with a previously unfertilised egg - can definitely "donate" sperm without dying, although I'm not sure about the concept of informed consent by fish, even higher bony fish such as various species of salmon.
I'll have to research the history of fish farming a bit before answering the rest of your question... Harvesting fish sperm wasn't covered in depth (well at all, actually!) during my BSc Marine Biology 1989 - 92.I guess either the demand was relativley low, so could be met by a few fish living in tanks, where harvesting would be easy, perhaps "encouraged" by chemicals to release their sperm, or sperm could have been taken from dead fish killed for food - although sperm from inside a fish body wouldn't be as "ripe" as sperm released into the water as happens with ntural spawning.
Environmentally, fish farming can mean more sustainable use of resources, because there is less pressure on wild stocks, but it's a complex issue, as things (food, faeces, medicine etc) falling though the nets have an impact on other marine organisms in the water and on the seabed, air breathing birds and seals can get tangled and drown in nets, farmed fish can escape and interbreed with wild stocks, where their differentt genetics can affect wil fish.
 
Northerner said:
As far as I can tell, they don't use it any more - at least not in the non-animal insulins. It was used to slow the action of the insulin - a sort of 'fish lantus' - but the manufactured insulins have different means of achieving this.🙂
Click to expand...

From memory, I believe that the insulin NPH still uses fish sperm in it. That's still used. Even though I was moved of it a little after diagnosis way back in 1996.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_protamine_Hagedorn

Ok, the wiki article states that the sperm from river trout is used. I've become a little sceptical of wiki now that one or two of my lecturers lambasted it in a session on how to write essays.

Tom
 
Trout are salmonids (group of fish that includes salmon and trout), so that might be part of the explanation. But I wouldn't use Wikipedia as a primary source of information for anyone.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top