A weekly injection over daily could be on its way for treating type-2 diabetes

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- People with Type-2 diabetes often need to take a dose of insulin- anytime, anywhere.

"If you went somewhere, you had to take your glucose monitoring kit with you," patient Chris Sheridan says."

48-year-old Chris Sheridan was diagnosed with type two diabetes 20 years ago and has been checking his glucose levels every day since.

"I had to give myself a shot every day"

Chris has to remember to take his insulin while working on his Jeep, and then making sure he has it when he's in the middle of nowhere.

But Chris had the opportunity to take part in a clinical trial to take only one insulin shot a week.

"It is taking the same, a molecule of insulin, a human insulin, a synthetic human insulin, but it's been altered a little bit and allows it to last longer in the body and get taken up a little bit slower," adult endocrinologist Athena Philis-Tsimikas says.

Philis-tsimikas is part of the team leading an international study comparing the new once-weekly shot to the daily insulin shots.

"There was not only equal lowering of the blood sugar to an equivalent amount between the two groups, but there was actually greater lowering, better blood glucose control," Philis-tsimikas says.

This one-shot may give millions of people new hope in the new year.

"When you think about a once-weekly injection for people with diabetes, they're going from having to take 365 injections a year to only 52 times a year," Philis-tsimikas says. "And although this might not seem like a lot to you and me, to the person having to do the injection, it can be incredibly significant."