Scientists have created a painless patch that can control diabetes without injections

[Northerner]

Scientists have been struggling for decades to free diabetics from regular insulin injections. One of the main goals has been to figure out how to transplant healthy beta cells - the insulin-producing cells that fail as a result of diabetes - into patients, but this is an invasive procedure in itself that comes with the risk of rejection.

Now researchers have come up with a simpler option - they've created a synthetic patch that's covered in natural beta cells, which can be stuck painlessly to a patient's skin to secrete insulin when it's required and safely control blood sugar levels, no injection or monitoring required.


The patch hasn't been tested on humans as yet, but it's already been shown to safely control the blood sugar levels of mice for at least 10 hours at a time, and the concept is an upgrade of the 'smart insulin patch' that was reported last yearby the same team.

The main difference is while the previous patch contained synthetic insulin, the new patch contains real, live beta cells, which means it's able to more safely manage a patient's blood sugar levels for longer, without the risk of over- or under-doing it.

http://www.sciencealert.com/scienti...patch-that-can-automatically-control-diabetes

Probably about 10 years away... 😉

 

[SB2015]

It is incredible what developments have happened in the past few years for managing Diabetes.
Who knows what next.