Bionic pancreas: A new dawn for diabetics?

[Northerner]

Those with type 1 diabetes often say having the condition is like having a second job such is the stress of monitoring their blood sugar levels and administering doses of insulin.

Now a group of researchers in the US say they have developed the first bionic pancreas that works in the real world enabling patients to lead a near normal life. Lin Lin Ginzberg and Kate Dailey investigate.

Like many teenagers Christopher Herndon loves sports. He is an avid fisherman, swimmer, cross country runner and mountain bike racer. But managing his Type 1 diabetes often limits his ability to follow his passion.

Every time he eats, exercises or gets stressed he has to check his blood sugar levels in order to ensure he has injected the right amount of insulin in his bloodstream. That often means sitting out games or simply not taking part.

This job is usually performed automatically by the body's pancreas but Type 1 diabetics do not produce insulin, the hormone that regulates blood sugar, so they have to inject it

Last summer however, Christopher was one of a small group of people who road tested a 'bionic pancreas' in a real-world trial that has life-changing potential.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-28810813

You do wonder how much these things are going to cost. These articles are always written as though the technology will become available to all and everything will be hunky dory - they ought to include soomething about how difficult today's technology is to acquire 🙄

And how have they cracked the glucagon stability issue?

 

[MacG3]

Call me old fashioned or a bit of a sceptic, but when I see the word bionic I always think of Steve Austin, the six million dollar man.

Reading the article, isn't this already available? Kookycats post on tighter control had a couple of things I didn't understand so I googled them. CGM led to a linked device that was a continuous monitor and pump. This seems to do the same thing but without a smartphone.

To be truly 'bionic' I would expect the device to be self contained within the body and actually produce insulin rather than pump from a vial.

 

[MarcLister]

I came here because I knew this article would be the subject of a thread here for discussion. I have to say that I love this article. Just for the first sentence.

Next time someone at work wonders why I'm stressed out or gives me an unfairly hard time, methinks I shall email them the link to this article with the email subject, "Read the first sentence!"

As for the article itself, like MacG3, I thought most of this is already out there but I think they are talking about bringing it into a single device that is more automated than anything on the market. Course it'll be quite a large device and expensive but should it work and get developed properly, it should be easier to make it smaller and cheaper. I'm not holding my breath just yet but it is nice to read any article about type 1 diabetes rather than type 2, which I get the feeling the British media tend to concentrate on more.

 

[Northerner]

Call me old fashioned or a bit of a sceptic, but when I see the word bionic I always think of Steve Austin, the six million dollar man.

Reading the article, isn't this already available? Kookycats post on tighter control had a couple of things I didn't understand so I googled them. CGM led to a linked device that was a continuous monitor and pump. This seems to do the same thing but without a smartphone.

To be truly 'bionic' I would expect the device to be self contained within the body and actually produce insulin rather than pump from a vial.

The main advances here are the algorithm used to calculate the requirements, not only of insulin, but also glucagon for when levels are going too high. Currently, the glucagon aspect is not available anywhere except for the extreme circumstances of glucagon pens for severe hypos. However, the pens provide glucagon in powder form which then has to be mixed with water prior to use due to the difficulty in keeping it stable in solution. Hence my query about how they have overcome this problem 🙂

 

[MacG3]

Ah just so I understand.....

Today you can automatically manage bs levels down, but not up.

 

[Pumper_Sue]

Ah just so I understand.....

Today you can automatically manage bs levels down, but not up.

The pumps we use now have to be programmed by the user, if we want to eat then we test our blood sugars and tell the pump how much we are going to eat plus blood sugar and it then calculates how much to give. We then can agree with it or not once we have made our choice we than have to push a button to deliver the dose.

Same with basal (long acting)you have to set the pump up to your own body needs, the pump only delivers what you tell it.

CGM is very good but not to be relied on for insulin dosing so you must always finger poke before you take action.
Hope that helps 🙂

 

[Bloden]

To be truly 'bionic' I would expect the device to be self contained within the body and actually produce insulin rather than pump from a vial.

And we'd make that do-do-do-do noise when we run (in slo-mo, of course) like The Bionic Man.😛