“Wooooh!” my friend hollered while practically skipping into the school hallway on Wednesday, high-fiving random passersby on the way and bearing one of the biggest smiles I’d ever seen. People shushed him, but he was too excited. Why the elation? The FDA had finally approved the first artificial pancreas for Type 1 diabetes and this means everything.
According to Healthline, about three million Americans live with Type 1 every day, and the number continues to grow, with 15,000 children and 15,000 adults diagnosed annually. This means three million Americans have to go through the tedious and constant process of testing their blood glucose levels, “covering” the food they eat with extra insulin, paying close attention to the amount of carbs in their meal, and more. Diabetes is a metabolic disease that diabetics must constantly think about to live healthy lives. Things are about to get just a tad easier.
The artificial pancreas, also known as AP and created by Medtronic, has been in development for fifty years, as stated by the American Diabetes Association. The first approved artificial pancreas is the MiniMed 670G system.Through the years of development, the goal has stayed consistent—to give type 1 diabetics an easier way of managing their glucose levels. This meant the device had to create closed system where the technology could self-monitor glucose levels and administer insulin as needed, rather than the diabetic having to manually perform these tasks.
As I’ve learned from being friends with a diabetic, maintaining a normal glucose level (usually between 70 and 120 mg/dL) is amazingly difficult. It demands the entire focus of the diabetic to calculate how much or how little insulin should be administered, and it can still easily go wrong and lead to high or low glucose levels, both of which are dangerous. The computer algorithms of the device can more exactly determine the proper dose of insulin, helping maintain more steady sugar levels. The device still requires diabetics to log how many carbs they eat, however, this will still immensely lighten the load of diabetics, and gifting them, and their families, the ability to worry less about glucose levels and focus on what’s important—living their lives.
While the artificial pancreas isn’t a permanent cure for type 1, it’s close enough and will help the lives of so many people. The device will be available by Spring 2016, but currently only for diabetics over the age of fourteen. We are certainly on the way from “Type 1 to Type None.”
