Health Information

Both pig (porcine) and cow (bovine) insulin are commonly used in the treatment of human diabetics. Because of the differences in amino acid sequence from the human insulin, some diabetic individuals will have an initial allergic response to the injected insulin as their immunological system recognizes the insulin as foreign, or develop an insulin resistance due to a high anti-insulin antibody titer at a later stage in treatment. However, the number of diabetics who have a deleterious immunological response to pig and cow insulin is small; the great majority of human diabetics can utilize the nonhuman insulin’s without immunological complication. The compatibility of cow and pig insulin in humans is due to the small number and the conservative nature of the changes between the amino acid sequences of the insulin. These changes do not significantly perturb the three dimensional structure of the insulin from that of human insulin. Pig insulin is usually more acceptable than cow insulin in insulin-reactive individuals because it is more similar in sequence to human insulin. Human insulin is now available for clinical use. It can be made using genetically engineered bacteria or by modifying pig insulin.