An All-New Insulin Administration Method for Type I Diabetes that could be here before Long
To hundreds of thousands of parents around the world in charge of a child with diabetes, a sound night's sleep is something that they have long forgotten to even imagine possible. Children with diabetes can through the night, have their blood sugar levels fall so low as to place their lives in danger, all while their parents catch up on little sleep. Dutiful parents have no choice but to keep constant vigil turn by turn through the night, to make sure that the child wakes up alright in the morning. But there is new hope. There is a new device now made possible by the invention of a new computer programming algorithm. A device programmed with the algorithm is able to measure a child's blood glucose levels through the night, and exercise control over an attached insulin administration pump to rectify any imbalances. The Lancet, the British medical research magazine, has just reported on this advance, and predicts that medical device manufacturers will quickly take this up on its promise.
What people had before, for children with juvenile diabetes (or Type I diabetes), was a blood glucose level monitor that did a continuous monitoring job all night, and the second device, an automatic insulin administration pump that worked independently of the first. Juvenile diabetes is something children get shortly after being born. Children need such a complex arrangement, because low blood glucose levels, or hypoglycemia, can send a child into tremors, seizures, and potentially, even a coma, or death. And yet, children, by the way their very bodies work, have their blood glucose levels vary so widely, that a simple automated pump, can never do a reasonable job.
In an experiment, a group of children was placed on this device, and another, on the standard treatment. Several children on the standard treatment sounded the alarm for dangerously low blood glucose levels that the system was unable to catch in time. There are about half a million people in America with Type I diabetes, who use some variation of the standard insulin administration setup. One old method of blood glucose detection, involved using a device that actually sampled blood from a pin prick on the skin, several times a day. But new technologies measure blood glucose levels with sensors attached to the skin.
What happens when you use such a sensor along with an automatic insulin administration pump, is this: if the blood sugar levels fall, the device sounds the alarm. But if the child fails to wake up to such a warm, the pump will keep sending insulin into the blood to metabolize the non-existent sugar. This turns into a very dangerous condition. The new system places both devices in one package, working together, that are able to measure blood glucose levels properly, and then decide whether or not to continue with insulin administration. Johnson & Johnson, and the Artificial Pancreas Project, are working together to bring such a product to the market, in a cell-phone sized device.
It might seem somewhat mysterious why this hasnt been possible before; but monitoring blood glucose levels reliably, and preparing insulin administration in real time, is it no small matter. Chip technology and computer programming technology needed to advance sufficiently before this could happen.