If This Smartphone 'Pancreas' Works, Then Type 1 Diabetes Patients Can Say Goodbye To Needles

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Northerner

Northerner

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American researchers have developed a system that automatically treats type 1 diabetes without the need for needles and finger pricks. In this system, a wearable insulin pump and a small sensor enable any smartphone to become a "digital pancreas," which can deliver insulin when needed and monitor blood sugar levels in an effortless and automatic manner.

The new system joins the ranks of other solutions developed for treating type 1 diabetes.

The "digital pancreas" has been in the works since 2006. Lead researcher Boris Kovatchev said the system doesn't only work but it can also effectively run using a smartphone. Kovatchev is the director of the Center for Diabetes Technology at the University of Virginia.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/1...betes-patients-can-say-goodbye-to-needles.htm
 
What if your phone runs out of battery?
 
Maybe the main pump thing can be operated manually and the phone app is just for convenience rather than having to fish around in your undies.
 
Lynn Davies said:
Maybe the main pump thing can be operated manually and the phone app is just for convenience rather than having to fish around in your undies.
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I think it's a lot more complicated than the article suggests. The pump needs not only to deliver extra insulin when needed, but also deliver glucagon when levels are too high. To my knowledge, no pump can do that currently and, in fact, glucagon is not stable in liquid form which I know is a big problem they are trying to overcome 🙂 Plus, whilst CGMS technology is good, it's not infallible and it would need to be pretty much spot on all the time for the system to respond accurately to any fluctuations. Personally, I'm also not sure I would trust something that was based on a general operating system like iphone or android, both prone to error and virus attacks - a problem with normal apps, but potentially life-threatening with something like this 😱
 
But if they do get it working how great for parents to be able to set an alarm on their phones to wake them up if their child is going hypo during the night - might do away with night time testing.
 
Lynn Davies said:
But if they do get it working how great for parents to be able to set an alarm on their phones to wake them up if their child is going hypo during the night - might do away with night time testing.
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I think they will get there eventually, but there is still a lot of work to be done 🙂
 
Well I have a fibit paired to my phone, had about a year and at least 2-3 times a week it won't communicate with my phone to track my exercise or finish the exercise. Not sure I would trust with a pump.
 
grovesy said:
Well I have a fibit paired to my phone, had about a year and at least 2-3 times a week it won't communicate with my phone to track my exercise or finish the exercise. Not sure I would trust with a pump.
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Precisely! People have too much faith in technology and tend to ignore its capacity to fail - I know, I have been in IT for 30+ years! 😱
 
It doesn't remove the need for needles anyway. Pump cannulas are inserted with needles which are quite a bit bigger than pen needles, and the cannulas have to be replaced every 2-3 days. Plus the CGM sensors must have to be put in with some sort of needle and they currently have to be calibrated fairly regularly which involves a finger prick test. So it might cut down on them a bit, but won't remove the need for them altogether!

Pump technology is amazing though, and I would love to get my daughter on a CGM or at least a Libre, am going to speak to the DSN about it next time I see her. I know some people who have got smart watches which are linked to their daughter's CGM, so they always know what her blood sugars are doing, but I think I heard them say that it involves two mobile phones to link them so sounds a bit complicated to me!

But it's all good stuff, who knows what technology will be capable of in a few years time, artificial pancreases are still in the prototype stage at the moment aren't they really, but I hope the technology can be developed and improved upon.
 
From my little experience of a CGM it certainly helps, but it is not infallible. Theoretically you only need to calibrate it twice daily, but I think it needs more than that and even then sometimes its quite off the mark. However I wouldn't want to be without it.
 
CGM just been buzzing and saying 4.9 and dropping. Done finger prick and its 6.0. Moral: a CGM helps, but you do still have to use your brian.
 
I trust my pump and cgm to suspend basal delivery and it has saved me from going unconscious especially during the night but I don't know I'd ever trust technology to work out what extra insulin I needed delivering. The worst that can happen with suspended basal is higher blood sugar although this hasn't seemed to happen to me, I dread to think of the potential problems with a closed loop delivering insulin, goodness knows what kind of algorithms it would need with all the tweaking we have to do to try and stay stable 😱

I wish the media would realise that the needle part of coping with diabetes is pretty insignificant compared to the bigger picture.
 
Yes, every non-injector is convinced that it must be the absolute worst thing about having diabetes! Erm, no...🙄
 
Just had another thought my phone crashed at the weekend and needed a reboot losing some of the information of the phone.
 
Just shows Tech is getting better ! I used to get injected with a glass syringe & you got I needle that lasted years. 😱
 
I'm another IT bod and I would find it hard to trust this as it employs a general jack of all trades device for its control. What its expected life span. Will it be guaranteed to work whem the operating system is upgraded
 
Looks good and I'm glad they are working on things like this but as others have said there is likely some way to go before we can rely on this type of tech entirely.
 
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