Well, not the whole thing, really, and also not for everybody — but if you’re like Official Heathen Counsel Triple-F, your pancreas is all jacked up on account of the sugar diabetes. Jeffrey Brewer wants to give you an artificial one instead.
Miscellaneous Heathen
Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to the past.
I understand why medical science has made limited progress in certain areas of disease, but not this one. Surely there are astounding sums of money to be made here, and the nature of the solution to this disease appears, at least on the surface, to be right up their alley- (1) dispense the right amount of insulin at the right time (goto 1). I’d like to better understand who or what is holding up the show.
Well, my brother knows more about this (he’s a diabetic; I’m sure he’ll be along shortly), but part of the issue with creating a “closed loop” system — ie, one that measures blood sugar and dispenses accordingly — is liability, and not just in the legal sense. If an automatic system malfunctions, it could kill a patient very, very quickly.
A type 1 diabetic’s most dangerous problem isn’t actually caused by the disease. Yes, untreated diabetes will lead to absurdly high blood sugars, which will kill you eventually, but the much more proximate danger is LOW blood sugar caused by an insulin vs. food intake mismatch. Heretofore, diabetics injected a cocktail of slow, medium, and fast-acting insulin a couple times a day, and then had to be sure to eat enough of the right foods at the right times. Skipping a meal could be hugely dangerous!
This problem is ameliorated quite a bit by the increasing prevalence of insulin pumps over injections. My understanding is that these have become WAY more commonly used now — I see them all over, but with a family member using one obviously I’m more likely to notice. Apparently, you can achieve much better control this way, but it’s still a reactive rather than a proactive system — you still do finger pricks to check blood sugar, and then adjust the pump’s rate. The calculus is simpler, too, because with a constant source of insulin you don’t need the slow/medium/fast cocktail anymore, so you escape the need for careful meal planning. But you’re still managing a process manually; a closed-loop system like an artificial pancreas would, ideally, take the readings and adjust itself. And the tests are apparently promising.
The article’s pretty good, btw.
Jesus. So corporate liability, academics deaf to practical considerations, and my personal favorite, a ghastly federal bureaucracy, have managed to stand on the brakes for this long. For the love of the freshly sauteed savior, you can see in the comments section that there are diabetics crying out, “I AM WILLING TO TAKE THE RISKS NECESSARY TO ADVANCE THE RESEARCH”, but are refused the right, or at least the opportunity, to do so. There’s got to be a means to force the legal issue out of the equation. People should be allowed to roll the dice as they see fit.
I think it’s more liability than anything else, but it’s true the FDA can be more conservative than is sometimes a good idea. OTOH, I’m not sure that’s always a bad thing, considering the stakes.
JDRF is on it, though, and will likely produce actual results. They’re an insanely effective organization, and put the American Diabetes Association absolutely to shame in terms of passthrough rate and effectiveness. FYI, ADA also supports research into Type II diabetes, which is a different malady — and type II rates are climbing, but they’re also climbing because people are fatter. Thin, fit people tend not to develop type II, but kids tend to get type I. This makes it easy for me to consider which organization is doing the more valuable work.
No, I’m sure this has nothing to do with having a diabetic brother. Why do you ask? ;)