Synthetic Pancreas Beats Insulin Pump in Check - WebMD

WebMD Media from HealthDay By Serena Gordon HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- The artificial pancreas -- a treatment that's been called the closest thing to a possible treatment for type 1 diabetes -- could be yet another step closer to becoming a reality. Israeli researchers only produced the findings from an overnight test of these artificial pancreas system at three different camps for children with type 1 diabetes. The artificial pancreas program managed to keep better blood sugar levels, and helped prevent dangerous overnight falls in blood sugar levels, compared to an pump and a constant glucose monitor, in line with the study. "There is a cure for better control minus the concern with [low blood sugar levels], and for that reason improvement in standard of living is coming soon," said study writer Dr. Moshe Phillip. Philip is manager of the Institute for Endocrinology and Diabetes at the National Center for Childhood Diabetes at the Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel, in Tel Aviv. The results come in the Feb. 28 dilemma of the Brand New England Journal of Medicine. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune infection where the body's immunity system turns against healthy cells. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system problems beta cells in the pancreas, efficiently destroying the body's capability to make the hormone insulin. Insulin aids metabolize carbs from food and fuels the body's cells. Insulin can not be replaced with a product. It must certanly be injected with an attempt or provided by a tiny catheter that is used by a pump introduced under the skin. This catheter must be changed every few days. The situation with both practices is that individuals have to calculate how much insulin they will need on the basis of the foods they eat and how much activity they will be doing. An excessive amount of insulin can lead to low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), making a with diabetes feel awful, and if left untreated, can cause a person to pass out. Low blood sugar levels can even cause death. Not enough insulin results in high blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia), which as time passes could cause severe complications, such as eye problems and cardiovascular disease and kidney. Those problems could be potentially solved by an artificial pancreas by taking over the decision-making process and using sophisticated computer algorithms to choose how much insulin is necessary at any given moment. But developing this type of system isn't easy. It has to be able to consistently discover patients' blood sugar levels and know whether the levels are trending up or down. There also has to be always a little bit of the device that offers and holds insulin. Right now, many synthetic pancreas products, such as the one examined in this research, use already-available insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors. Such displays measure every short while to blood sugar with an alarm that is placed beneath the skin, and deliver the results to a transmitter.