More progress made on artificial pancreas for diabetes patients
June 10, 2012 By Serena Gordon, HealthDay Reporter in Diabetes
Several groups refining systems that would monitor and adjust blood sugar levels.
(HealthDay) -- Progress continues to be made on the development of an artificial pancreas, a device that would ease the burden of living with type 1 diabetes.
Several artificial pancreas research groups presented their latest findings Saturday at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting in Philadelphia, and the hope is that the makers of one or more of the devices will be seeking regulatory approval within the next five years.
"I'm cautiously optimistic," said Aaron Kowalski, assistant vice president for treatment therapies at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. "The FDA has really turned the corner and is moving much faster.... My hope is that in the next year or two, we'll see approvals on devices that can minimize [low blood sugar levels], and that's just the tip of the iceberg."
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system turns against healthy cells. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system attacks beta cells in the pancreas, effectively destroying the body's ability to produce the hormone insulin. Insulin helps metabolize carbohydrates from food and fuels the body's cells.
Type 1 diabetes can be managed with insulin injections or a pump that delivers insulin via a tiny catheter inserted under the skin every few days. The problem with both insulin-delivery techniques is that people have to estimate how much insulin they'll need based on the foods they eat and how much activity they will be doing.
Too much insulin can result in low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia), which, in turn, can cause a person to pass out. Low blood sugar levels can even lead to death. Too little insulin leads to high blood sugar levels (hyperglycemia), which over time can cause serious complications, such as heart disease and kidney and eye problems.
An artificial pancreas, which sometimes is referred to as a closed-loop system because it doesn't require user input, could potentially solve those problems by taking over the decision-making process and applying sophisticated computer algorithms to decide how much insulin is needed at any given moment.
But developing such a device isn't as easy as it sounds.
First, the device has to be able to continuously detect patients' blood sugar levels and know whether the levels are trending up or down. There has to be a piece of the device that holds and delivers insulin. And there needs to be a way to deal with low blood sugar levels.
Someone with type 1 diabetes typically consumes food or a sugar-containing drink to counteract drops in blood sugar. Some devices will shut off and sound an alarm to alert the person to treat their low blood sugar.
At least one device in development contains not only insulin, but also a hormone called glucagon that can quickly raise blood sugar levels.
Researchers at Boston University, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital are developing the device. In addition to reporting on the latest in-hospital trials of their device, they presented a prototype that uses a continuous glucose monitor, an insulin pump that also will house the artificial pancreas software with a low-powered Bluetooth device, and an app designed for the iPhone 4S, said Edward Damiano, one of the device's developers.
"It's a totally pocket-sized device," said Damiano, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University. Damiano, who will be wearing his team's version of the artificial pancreas for the presentation, said their device is the only one that truly is closed-loop because it includes both glucagon and insulin, allowing it to respond to both high and low blood sugar levels without user input.
Damiano said they soon will be filing paperwork for five-day in-hospital trials of their system. They also are planning two transitional studies for summer 2013 that will include campers at a diabetes camp and hospital personnel with type 1 diabetes. If all goes well, their hope is that they will be able to do a large-scale six-month outpatient trial by 2015, Damiano said.
Another research group, at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, is recruiting people for outpatient trials on an artificial pancreas device similar to the one Damiano's team is working on. Although this device also uses a smartphone to display the device's information, however, it contains only insulin, not glucagon.
Another device, called a Hypoglycemia-Hyperglycemia Minimizer, which was developed in a partnership with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the insulin-pump maker Animas, was able to automatically predict increases and decreases in blood sugar levels. It also was able to change insulin delivery accordingly in a study that included 13 people between 24 and 57 years old with type 1 diabetes.
"The successful completion of this study using the [Hypoglycemia-Hyperglycemia Minimizer] system in a human clinical trial is a significant step forward in the development of an advanced first-generation artificial pancreas," Dr. Henry Anhalt, chief medical officer for Animas, said in a statement.
Kowalski is optimistic about the future development of an artificial pancreas.
"This gives me a lot of hope that we're really starting to roll to what could be full-blown product development," he said.
Kowalski said he believes the artificial pancreas likely will be approved in steps. "I don't think it will be one product, but an evolution," he said.
First, he said, will be a device designed to minimize the impact of severe low blood sugar. After that, it's likely that there will be a device to prevent low blood sugar from occurring in the first place.
"Each of these steps should be meaningful, make life easier and improve glucose control for people with type 1 diabetes," Kowalski said.
More information: Learn more about the artificial pancreas from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
-
Engineering new weapons in the fight against juvenile diabetes
Jun 06, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Novel artificial pancreas successfully controls blood sugar more than 24 hours
Apr 14, 2010 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Mayo Clinic developing artificial pancreas to ease diabetes burden
Jun 24, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Researchers discover protein that may represent new target for treating type 1 diabetes
Jan 04, 2012 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Discovery of new signal pathway important to diabetes research
Jun 04, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Differences of Classical Mechanics when learned with Calc vs algebra?
24 minutes ago
-
what is the distance traveled
4 hours ago
-
Image of a Convex Lens Cut in Half Horizontally
8 hours ago
-
Ray tracing throught optical system of thick lenses
8 hours ago
-
Faraday's law on circular wire
9 hours ago
-
Specific Exergy vs Specific Flow Exergy
10 hours ago
- More from Physics Forums - Classical Physics
More news stories
Fish oil supplements may help fight against Type 2 diabetes
Widely-used fish oil supplements modestly increase amounts of a hormone that is associated with lower risk of diabetes and heart disease, according to a study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of ...
Diabetes
3 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
Study shows that women who smoke during pregnancy increase the risk of both obesity and gestational diabetes in their da
Women who smoke during pregnancy increase the risk of both obesity and gestational diabetes, in their daughters, concludes research published in Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabet ...
Diabetes
May 20, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Rise in type 2 diabetes amongst young
The number of young people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes has seen the sharpest rise over the last twenty years compared to a background of a general increase across the board, new University research has ...
Diabetes
May 20, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
Research uncovers a potential role of two proteins in diabetes
(Medical Xpress)—Flinders University researchers are breaking new ground in a decade-long journey to pinpoint the function of two closely related proteins.
Diabetes
May 20, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
0
|
Exercise prevents fructose-induced hypertriglyceridemia
(HealthDay)—Moderate aerobic exercise prevents fructose-induced hypertriglyceridemia in healthy males, according to a study published online May 14 in Diabetes.
Diabetes
May 17, 2013 |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
|
Having both migraines, depression may mean smaller brain
(HealthDay)—Migraines and depression can each cause a great deal of suffering, but new research indicates the combination of the two may be linked to something else entirely—a smaller brain.
Brain can be trained in compassion, study shows
Until now, little was scientifically known about the human potential to cultivate compassion—the emotional state of caring for people who are suffering in a way that motivates altruistic behavior.
SARS-like virus claims new life in Saudi
A man who had contracted the coronavirus has died in Saudi Arabia, raising the death toll in the kingdom from the SARS-like virus to 17, the health ministry announced on its website on Wednesday.
Glaxo, US partnering to develop new antibiotics
GlaxoSmithKline PLC says it's starting an unusual collaboration with the U.S. government to develop several antibiotics for both bioterrorism threats and bacterial infections resistant to current medicines.
'Boys will be boys' in US, but not in Asia
A new study shows there is a gender gap when it comes to behavior and self-control in American young children – one that does not appear to exist in children in Asia.
More kids getting donor organs, but gaps persist, study finds
(HealthDay)—Over the last decade, the number of American children who die each year awaiting an organ donation dropped by more than half, new research reveals. And increasing numbers of children are receiving ...