Back in February I posted about the development of an “artificial pancreas,” which automatically monitored blood sugar levels and could deliver insulin when necessary. Today we learned that the system, which is made up of a blood glucose monitor, two insulin pumps and a laptop computer, was successfully tested in 11 adults with type 1 diabetes:
After some adjustments to a sophisticated computer program that acts as the brain of the system, all 11 adults in the study had good blood sugar control without experiencing hypoglycemia, even after eating three high-carbohydrate meals.
“This is the first artificial pancreas device that has used both insulin and glucagon,” said Dr. Steven Russell of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who helped lead the study.
The finding is the latest in what has become a race to develop a fully functioning artificial pancreas that can give patients with type 1 diabetes an automated way to control their blood sugar.
Now if they can only shrink it to an implantable size…