This Artificial Pancreas Treats Type 2 Diabetes Using Over-the-Counter Devices
For the tens of millions of people in the U.S. living with type 2 diabetes, each day requires a set of chores that include taking pills, testing blood sugar, and injecting insulin. Sometimes life can get in the way, and you could miss a dose—resulting in stress as you keep an even closer eye on your blood sugar levels at best, and a potential trip to the hospital at worse.
That’s why researchers at the University of Cambridge have devised an artificial pancreas that uses AI to automatically inject the correct dose of insulin at the right time. The device even uses tools that can be purchased over the counter, such as a glucose monitor and insulin pump. This means that it’s not only effective at delivering insulin to patients at precise doses and times, but it could also be fairly accessible.
This system is described as “closed-loop,” as it doesn’t require the patient to tell the device when they’re about to eat and, therefore, when to inject insulin. A paper of Cambridge team’s findings was published on Jan. 11 in the journal Nature Medicine.
Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here