DIY DIABETES MANAGEMENT: AN ETHICAL DILEMMA

[Northerner]

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is one of Australia’s most common serious childhood diseases. About 10, 000 children under the age of 18 live with the condition and around 1,000 new cases are diagnosed each year.

T1D is a chronic auto-immune condition where the immune system destroys cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Insulin helps cells in our body turn glucose or sugar into energy.

People with T1D must monitor their blood glucose levels multiple times every day, usually with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), and they rely on insulin being delivered through a pump, or by injection, to regulate these levels.

But emerging technologies are changing the way some people manage this disease, encouraging a DIY approach that is igniting ethical debate in the healthcare profession.
At the University of Melbourne we have begun exploring the legal, ethical and regulatory issues of these new approaches.

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/diy-diabetes-management-an-ethical-dilemma

 

[Hepato-pancreato]

I hate the term artificial pancreas or the memes you had one job depicting a cartoon picture of a pancreas.
When you suffer from chronic pancreatitis or have Type 3c diabetes you realise the pancreas has two jobs.
So therefore it isn’t an artificial pancreas. Bit like calling a motor bike a car . ( only half amount of wheels ).
In years to come when Type 3c is more common than type 1, they may invent one that spews out enzymes as well as insulin.

 

[Northerner]

I hate the term artificial pancreas or the memes you had one job depicting a cartoon picture of a pancreas.
When you suffer from chronic pancreatitis or have Type 3c diabetes you realise the pancreas has two jobs.
So therefore it isn’t an artificial pancreas. Bit like calling a motor bike a car . ( only half amount of wheels ).
In years to come when Type 3c is more common than type 1, they may invent one that spews out enzymes as well as insulin.

You're right HP, it's a journalistic term really. The official name for the devices is a closed-loop system. That other vital role in digestion is what makes it such a tricky organ to deal with.

I've also personally always wondered why, in Type 1, the immune system doesn't scupper the alpha cells which produce the other half of the blood glucose equation, glucagon The closed-loop systems can now release glucagon as well as insulin - until recently it was not thought possible to produce a glucagon that was stable enough to be included in such a system (it has to be reconstituted at time of use in glucagon pens), but they have now succeeded, so maybe Creon will get a look in some time in the future! 🙂

 

[mikeyB]

You can’t put Creon in a pump, it would digest your body. That’s all it is, digestive enzymes borrowed from pigs. Well, not exactly borrowed, they don’t have any say in the arrangement. 🙂