Mr. Montez is a patient with type I diabetes mellitus. He presents with dizziness, rapid breathing, confusion, and weakness. You find out that he forgot to inject his normal dose of insulin this morning. Will his blood glucose concentration be normal? Explain. Your colleague suggests that Mr. Montez needs to ingest some sugar. Is this going to help him? Why or why not? 

Video transcript

Everyone. Let's take a look at this question together. Mrs Lopez is diagnosed with type one diabetes. She receives periodic insulin injections as part of her treatment. What is the reason why insulin cannot be administered orally? Is it answer choice? A? It has a very unpleasant taste. Answer choice. B it is extremely toxic when taken orally. Answer choice C the stomach's enzyme can interfere with its action or answer choice. D it can damage the outer lining of the stomach. Let's work this problem out together to try to figure out which of the following answer choices is the reason why insulin cannot be administered orally. So in order to solve this question, we have to recall what we have learned about insulin and what occurs when some is administered orally, which we know that substances that are ingested orally must pass through the stomach and its acid. So in the case of insulin being administered orally, the insulin must pass through the stomach and the stomach acid and those digestive enzymes such as proteases found within the stomach and the stomach acid will degrade the insulin. So the insulin will not be effective, which is why insulin is not administered orally. Since the degradation of the insulin will prevent the insulin from reaching the bloodstream intact. So the effectiveness of insulin would be compromised if ingested orally, which means that answer choice c the stomach's enzyme can interfere with its action. Is the correct answer. And all other answer choices are incorrect. I hope you found this video to be helpful. Thank you and goodbye.