The role of insulin purification: an overview

Besides the obvious toxicity of overdosage and hypoglycemia, insulin administration may also be complicated by a variety of local cutaneous reactions and systemic allergic complications. Although these responses are by no means universal among patients injecting insulin, they may pose significant clinical problems. This is particularly true for the localized skin reactions such as lipoatrophy and the systemic insulin allergy leading to insulin resistance. Most commercially available insulin preparations are extracts of pork or beef pancreas. One approach to reducing insulin complications is to improve the homogeneity of commercial preparations by further purification, which has been afforded by recent technology. A priori, the preparations most resembling human insulin with the fewest contaminants should provide the optimal therapy for diabetic patients. Whether this will prove to be the case remains to be documented.