Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Life with type 1 diabetes requires an astonishing number of health-related decisions – about 180 per day. But patients’ vigilant monitoring of their daytime blood sugar, food intake, insulin and activity levels is perhaps less exhausting than the worries they face about getting a safe night’s sleep. During sleep, diabetics often fail to sense when their blood glucose veers too low. Low blood sugar levels can cause seizures and even, in rare cases, death.
“At night you lose control,” said Bruce Buckingham, MD, a pediatric endocrinologist who treats children with diabetes at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. “It’s when things can happen.” Among children with diabetes, about 75 percent of hypoglycemic seizures occur at night, he said.
That’s why Buckingham and his colleagues across the United States and Canada have been testing various methods to automate blood sugar control during sleep. Our press release on their new research describes an approach that could make a big difference – automated shut-offs of patients’ insulin pumps to keep their sugar levels above the hypoglycemia danger zone:
http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2014/05/08/new-research-keeps-diabetics-safer-during-sleep/
Two years? More like 10 before they become generally available here, if ever.
“At night you lose control,” said Bruce Buckingham, MD, a pediatric endocrinologist who treats children with diabetes at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. “It’s when things can happen.” Among children with diabetes, about 75 percent of hypoglycemic seizures occur at night, he said.
That’s why Buckingham and his colleagues across the United States and Canada have been testing various methods to automate blood sugar control during sleep. Our press release on their new research describes an approach that could make a big difference – automated shut-offs of patients’ insulin pumps to keep their sugar levels above the hypoglycemia danger zone:
http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2014/05/08/new-research-keeps-diabetics-safer-during-sleep/
Two years? More like 10 before they become generally available here, if ever.
