Artificial pancreas raises hope for Type1 diabetes patients

Artificial pancreas' for type 1 diabetes wins FDA approval

An artificial pancreas could replace insulin trackers for type-1 diabetes sufferers. A team of American and Italian researchers successfully piloted a “novel” artificial pancreas system that showed improvements in two key measures of folks living with the metabolic disorder.

These findings were published in the journal ‘Diabetes Care’. Type 1 diabetes is usually diagnosed in children and young adults, and was previously known as juvenile diabetes.

Only five per cent of people with diabetes have this form of the disease. In type 1 diabetes, the body does not produce insulin. The body breaks down the sugars and starches eaten into a simple sugar called glucose, which it uses for energy.

Type-1 diabetes manifests in people whose body does not naturally produce enough insulin, resulting in high blood sugar levels. Patients must vigilantly monitor blood glucose levels, and often require self-administered doses of insulin— via needle injection or infusion pump. Insulin is a hormone that the body needs to get glucose from the bloodstream into the cells of the body.

With the help of insulin therapy and other treatments, even young children can learn to manage their juvenile diabetes condition and live long. The study led by Frank Doyle and Eyal Dassau of the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS)— generated positive effects, namely decreased haemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and reduced time spent in hypoglycemia. According to findings of the new study, the artificial pancreas, a closed-loop system, complete with an insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor, is placed under the skin, where it communicates with a Bluetoothenabled smartphone to regulate insulin delivery based on food intake, physical activity, sleep, stress, and metabolism.

This method of tackling juvenile diabetes, first introduced by Doyle and Co. in 1996—can ‘learn’ from repeated daily cycles, allowing customised treatment for individual patients.

Currently, children suffering juvenile diabetes take daily injection of insulin shots to control their blood glucose and many find it very cumbersome and painful, having to inject themselves daily so as to achieve healthy living.