Daylight time changes impact on pump users

[Amity Island]

Researchers say daylight saving time is dangerous to people using insulin pumps.

A team of MSU researchers has written an article on the risk of mistakes in insulin dosage due to time change published in a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

“My hope is to get rid of daylight saving time altogether.”

Researchers say daylight saving time is dangerous to people using insulin pumps

Michigan State University researchers are calling for an end to daylight saving time to protect people with diabetes

www.wgvunews.org

 

[Satan’s little helper]

How do different time zones on holiday work out? Daylight saving is only an hour?

 

[Sally71]

Can’t say we ever notice any difference! Certainly no worse than any other random fluctuations in blood sugars 🙄

 

[Satan’s little helper]

Can’t say we ever notice any difference! Certainly no worse than any other random fluctuations in blood sugars 🙄

Thanks for the peace of mind. I don't pump yet. But some who do online seem to make it a "dark art?" I don't buy it.

 

[nonethewiser]

Pump user of many years never had any issues with time change.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Pump user of many years never had any issues with time change.

Yes, feels like a stretch. Sure, you could get it wrong (the example given was switching from AM to PM), but just shifting an hour either way shouldn't be difficult. Depends on the interface, I guess, and manufacturers ought to put some effort into evaluating such things given that daylight saving times aren't likely to disappear (and we'll presumably always have timezone variations).

I wonder if the AM/PM problem is made worse because (in the US) 24 hour clocks are less commonly used? (I don't use a pump but I could imagine some pumps deliberately defaulting to 24 hour outside the US to reduce such confusions, and maybe that's not acceptable to US users?)

 

[Sally71]

Thanks for the peace of mind. I don't pump yet. But some who do online seem to make it a "dark art?" I don't buy it.

Well when you get your pump it is all very precise and can deliver minuscule doses which can make all the difference, so you learn how to use it and are taught that it has to be set up exactly right for you to get optimal performance. Which in some ways is true; that’s the advantage it has over injections. But human bodies don’t work that precisely or consistently, so in reality you’ve got more wiggle room than you imagine. And you’ll still get those days when it all goes wrong and you have no idea why!

 

[Inka]

Another spurious reason to try to get rid of Clock Changes. They come up every year, but this is the first time I’ve seen a pump one I think there is a possible tiny effect, but that effect is also potentially felt by those on MDI too.

 

[Satan’s little helper]

Well when you get your pump it is all very precise and can deliver minuscule doses which can make all the difference, so you learn how to use it and are taught that it has to be set up exactly right for you to get optimal performance. Which in some ways is true; that’s the advantage it has over injections. But human bodies don’t work that precisely or consistently, so in reality you’ve got more wiggle room than you imagine. And you’ll still get those days when it all goes wrong and you have no idea why!

I've been T1 since a kid for nearly 5 decades. I could do with this bit of a break our Lord and saviour Dr Karr promised on the shorter less sledge hammer to crack my nut dosage?

 

[Sally71]

Another spurious reason to try to get rid of Clock Changes. They come up every year, but this is the first time I’ve seen a pump one I think there is a possible tiny effect, but that effect is also potentially felt by those on MDI too.

Does nobody remember that there was a trial in the 1970s to stay on summertime all year round, which was declared a disaster after 2 or 3 years and hence the clock changes were brought back in? So my mum tells me, I would have been too small to know!

 

[Inka]

Does nobody remember that there was a trial in the 1970s to stay on summertime all year round, which was declared a disaster after 2 or 3 years and hence the clock changes were brought back in? So my mum tells me, I would have been too small to know!

Yes, that’s right! I remember my Dad telling me. It’s not a good idea IMO.

 

[Inka]

Apparently we had Double Summertime during the war. See link:

British Summer Time (BST) and Daylight Saving - understanding UK time changes

Why does UK time change, and when was British Summer Time first introduced? Explore the history of BST and daylight saving

www.rmg.co.uk

“During the Second World War (1939-1945), British Double Summer Time - two hours in advance of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) - was temporarily introduced for the period when ordinary daylight saving would be in force. During the winter, clocks were kept one hour in advance of GMT to increase productivity.”

 

[Bruce Stephens]

Does nobody remember that there was a trial in the 1970s to stay on summertime all year round, which was declared a disaster after 2 or 3 years and hence the clock changes were brought back in? So my mum tells me, I would have been too small to know!

1968-1971, apparently. (Rather too long ago for me, too.)

From https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/RP93-111/RP93-111.pdf

The Government gave an undertaking that a comprehensive review would be carried out before any decision was taken at the end of the BST experiment. The White Paper which followed in 1970 (Cmnd 4512, Review of British Standard Time) pointed out that it was impossible to quantify advantages and disadvantages and that a final decision would need to rest largely on a qualitative decision.​

​

The issue was debated in the Commons on 2 December 1970 and by a vote of 366 to 81 the British Standard Time experiment was discontinued. It has since been alleged by groups in favour of change that the outcome of this vote was affected by powerful lobbying by farmers, the building industry and the Scots, who had overwhelmed a "silent majority". It has also been alleged that this lobbying was helped by the Press, who had produced on their front pages "lurid photographs of a few children injured on the way to school in the dark" [2].​

There's a later comment

The DoT Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL) produced the report The Potential Effect on Road Casualties of [CET/SDST], in 1989 [17]. This considered data from the winters between 1968 and 1971 during the BST experiment. It also took into account the fact that overall casualty data had fallen between 1971 and 1989, and other factors such as traffic practices, lighting conditions and travel patterns which had changed, or which would change, under CET.​

​

Analyses after the BST experiment indicated that it had been effective in reducing road traffic casualties.​

​

More people were injured in the darker mornings, but fewer people were injured in the lighter afternoons. Throughout the year there are always more people injured in the late afternoon than in the morning, so the saving in the afternoons more than compensated for the increase in the mornings. This meant that there was a net reduction in casualties [17].​