THE USE OF THE INSULIN ZINC SUSPENSIONS IN DIABETIC CHILDREN BY

Abstract

It is generally conceded that in children there is greater difficulty in achieving good control of diabetes with one daily insulin injection than there is in adults. At the same time it is in children especially that the need for fewer daily injections is felt. The recent introduction of the new long-acting insulin zinc suspension (IZS) by Hallas-M0ller (Hallas-M0ller, Jersild, Petersen and Schlichtkrull, 1952) at the Novo Laboratories, Denmark, raised the two questions of whether this preparation could be used with success in children, and whether it offered advantages over the other long-acting insulins. The amorphous form of IZS (Novo 'semilente') is said to act for 12 to 16 hours after injection, and the crystalline form (Novo 'ultra-lente') for more than 24 hours. Novo 'lente ' is a stable mixture containing 30 % amorphous and 70 % crystalline IZS. Reports on the use of IZS in adult diabetics have so far tended to be mainl