Scientists have developed a synthetic ‘wearable pancreas’ that helps Type 1 diabetes patients manage their illness by automatically monitoring their blood sugar and administering insulin. The scientists from Boston University and the Massachusetts General Hospital successfully tested the device on 20 adults and 32 teenagers for five days.
The device comprises an iPhone 4S attached to a glucose monitor and two phone sized pumps that deliver insulin and glucagon. The device has three small needles that stay under the patient’s skin at the stomach to connect him/her to the device. The device can be placed either in a pouch on the belt or in the pocket.
During the test, the adults were put up in a hotel and were asked to engage in their regular dietary and lifestyle habits but were asked to control their alcohol consumption. The teenagers, on the other hand, were asked to stay at a summer camp. The scientists have stated that the current test was a success and the device performed consistently better than current insulin pumps and monitors. They hope to continue the trials and expand the scope by giving 40 adults the device for 11 days. The scientists also hope to gradually fit all three components into a single device for ease of use and portability.
This development could come as good news for India which has one of the highest number of diabetes patients in the world with about 61 million afflicted, a number that’s expected to shoot up to over 100 million by 2030. India also has a shockingly high rate of mortality because of diabetes with almost a million deaths a year.
Source: The New England Journal of Medicine via The Verge