The researchers say they hope the artificial pancreas will be available for type 1 diabetes patients in the next 5 years, though the next step for the team is to conduct animal testing to “evaluate the in vivo performance” of the device.
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Type 1 diabetes affects well over one million people living in the United States today, many of which are teenagers or children. This could prove to be a significant milestone considering patients now must either self-inject themselves with the hormone several times a day or perform a continuous hormone infusion through an external insulin pump.
A small, preliminary study by different researchers, published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests the approach might work. “That also would be a pretty big win”, explains Dr. Louis Philipson, a diabetes specialist with the University of Chicago. Both types are, unfortunately, on the rise, but the studies show that Type 2 is preventable as it is associated with poor lifestyle choices. But the upward trend in Type 1 diabetes, increasing worldwide by at least 3 percent each year, is more perplexing. Even though a cure for diabetes type I still looks like a distant dream there is hope on the horizon now.
Patients afflicted must keep constant track of their glucose level and calculate their body’s need for insulin daily, as well as anticipating it because the time gap between the injection and its effect can be large. If the levels are high, the protein would automatically react with glucose which in turn dissolves the HA tiny pockets that releases enough amount of insulin for the body.
Insulin is something that is very important for people with diabetes type 1 because they no longer have the ability to make insulin naturally in their body. It can sometimes be treated with a healthy diet and exercise.
Insulin pills also are being studied as a diabetes treatment, but the challenge has been finding a way to get the drug to reach the bloodstream without being degraded as it is digested.
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There’s a middle son, too – 9-year-old Daxton, who faces an increased diabetes risk because his little brother has it. Frank Doyle, chair of the University of California-Santa Barbara chemical engineering department, said in a statement that the closed-circuit system provided far more tight control at an unprecedented level in order to minimize complications and improve quality of life.
