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Wearable device senses blood glucose and administers insulin accordingly

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Re: Wearable device senses blood glucose and administers insulin accordingly

#21

Post by micro_cam »

andreareina wrote: post #20
gabroo wrote: post #14

I'm a type 1 diabetic. None of the examples mentioned truly replace the endocrine functions of the pancreas lost in the disease progression. They do, however, use a sensor that measures blood glucose (fairly accurately) and a controller that estimates how much insulin to give (very crudely). Maybe this seems unintuitive, but the bottleneck of these systems is not the hardware or the control algorithm, but rather the…

Do we know approximately why synthetic insulin is that slow, e.g. is it the delivery mechanism or is it the formulation?

Delivery I believe, it takes a while to get absorbed from where you inject it and spread around. You can speed this up by exercising the area it was injected into or even a hot shower to increase blood flow. There is also a new faster acting inhaled insulin, afrezza, but that won't work with the pumps discussed here.

Re: Wearable device senses blood glucose and administers insulin accordingly

#23

Post by sgt101 »

gabroo wrote: post #14

I'm a type 1 diabetic. None of the examples mentioned truly replace the endocrine functions of the pancreas lost in the disease progression. They do, however, use a sensor that measures blood glucose (fairly accurately) and a controller that estimates how much insulin to give (very crudely). Maybe this seems unintuitive, but the bottleneck of these systems is not the hardware or the control algorithm, but rather the…

My daughter has the cambridge (CamAPS) one : https://camdiab.com/

My understanding is that it has a predictive algorithm based on what it's learned about the response of the user. Also we work out carbs and put them into the device 20 minutes before meals so that it can pre-dose.

Another advantage is the minute to minute monitoring providing data that allows us to understand how well she is doing and what we need to do to improve her levels.

Re: Wearable device senses blood glucose and administers insulin accordingly

#24

Post by happy_path »

ohiovr wrote: post #6
ohiovr wrote: post #2

It doesn't make insulin. Not a replacement for the pancreas yet. Insulin is a fantastically complicated molecule and costly to life to make. Cells in the pancreas have to be doubly sensitive to glucose. They have to make insulin from sensing glucose, and they are more easily damaged by glucose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_(medication) For now it takes the sacrifice of many animals to satisfy a diabetic. Wha…

Okay. Then why does it cost a fortune to get in the USA? Its just as simple as brewing wine is it? Well. I have my doubts.

The question could be why does it cost a fortune to get in the USA while it is paid by taxes in other countries?

Re: Wearable device senses blood glucose and administers insulin accordingly

#26

Post by jaggederest »

guywhocodes wrote: post #13
jaggederest wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I didn't know that Type 1 diabetes involved impaired glucagon regulation as well - the beta cells only really produce insulin and amylin, but from reading the wiki briefly there are knock-on effects in other areas. Cool stuff, hopefully the technology continues to improve and produce something resembling a true artificial pancreas soon, or maybe beta cell regeneration therapies.

My understanding is that it's not as total as insulin deficiency and of course that the function is not as critical has caused it to go largely unnoticed.

Yeah for sure, I certainly didn't know about it, and I've been an interested observer of the technology around diabetes for a while.

Re: Wearable device senses blood glucose and administers insulin accordingly

#27

Post by dreamcompiler »

sgt101 wrote: post #23
gabroo wrote: post #14

I'm a type 1 diabetic. None of the examples mentioned truly replace the endocrine functions of the pancreas lost in the disease progression. They do, however, use a sensor that measures blood glucose (fairly accurately) and a controller that estimates how much insulin to give (very crudely). Maybe this seems unintuitive, but the bottleneck of these systems is not the hardware or the control algorithm, but rather the…

My daughter has the cambridge (CamAPS) one : https://camdiab.com/ My understanding is that it has a predictive algorithm based on what it's learned about the response of the user. Also we work out carbs and put them into the device 20 minutes before meals so that it can pre-dose. Another advantage is the minute to minute monitoring providing data that allows us to understand how well she is doing and what we need to…

How much pre-dosing happens? My concern is what happens if your daughter for some reason is unable to eat her meal, and does she have glucose available for this case? (I don't know how old your daughter is; if she's a child always under your supervision this is less of an issue. I'm more interested in how people manage the process when they're independent, and how the machine tells you it's pre-dosing so you're aware you need to eat something.)

Re: Wearable device senses blood glucose and administers insulin accordingly

#28

Post by sgt101 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #27
sgt101 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My daughter has the cambridge (CamAPS) one : https://camdiab.com/ My understanding is that it has a predictive algorithm based on what it's learned about the response of the user. Also we work out carbs and put them into the device 20 minutes before meals so that it can pre-dose. Another advantage is the minute to minute monitoring providing data that allows us to understand how well she is doing and what we need to…

How much pre-dosing happens? My concern is what happens if your daughter for some reason is unable to eat her meal, and does she have glucose available for this case? (I don't know how old your daughter is; if she's a child always under your supervision this is less of an issue. I'm more interested in how people manage the process when they're independent, and how the machine tells you it's pre-dosing so you're aware…

Delivery of the "bolus insulin" happens when the meal is calculated 20 minutes before it's eaten. This is done manually, you have to figure the number (grams of carb) put the number in to a special screen (press a button to access) and confirm (three more steps) and it buzzes and says "delivered" at the end of the process.

If you don't eat your meal then the bolus is active and I guess that there are problems, this hasn't happened for us yet.

In the background the system delivers basal insulin - this is a low dose of insulin that is used by the app to manage glucose levels. The sensor shows the level, the app makes a prediction and then delivers insulin (or decides not to) in order to keep within limits. Sometimes she can go low or high (below 4 or over 7) when she goes low sometimes she has to eat sweets, when high sometimes engage "boost" mode. There is also an "ease off" feature that she engages to tell the system to expect a low insulin period; for example before playing sport.

The drawback of having a sensor is that you get alarms. The benefit is that you know what is happening and can act. The Camaps system with the always on pump means that you get relatively few alarms or overshoots. She is in bounds for a much improved amount of time (I think 95+% vs My daughter is nearly 12 and is able to manage this independently. It's certainly much easier for her than the injections were. I think that as a parent or school this would be much easier to manage for a smaller child - you would have to not give them the password for the phone of course! I'm no expert but I expect that there would be a lower limit for when the app will work because little kids are so different - but I don't know.

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