The Artificial Pancreas and the Diabetes Epidemic
Diabetes results when a defective pancreas results in the body no longer being able to release insulin and glucagon. This disease affects over 25 million Americans and can have very serious health effects, including death. Not only is the disease measured in the human cost, but it also costs the United States in excess of 174 billion dollars every year. With all this in mind the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) started a project with the goal of creating a functioning implantable artificial device. While the artificial pancreas would not be a cure it could provide a bridge while researchers find a cellular level answer.
This artificial pancreas would constantly monitor fluctuations in blood sugar levels and release the appropriate amount of insulin, basically taking over these responsibilities from the defective pancreas. There are two major components needed to perform these tasks. The first is a continuous glucose monitoring device and the second is an insulin pump. These two devices exist separately but they need to be integrated and miniaturized for implantation. Current continuous glucose monitors are cell phone sized and measure glucose in the skin, not the blood, to get results and is not intended for long term monitoring. The continuous glucose monitor used in an artificial pancreas would have to monitor the glucose levels in the blood, with the ability to monitor that patient’s blood sugar level for the rest of their life. While an insulin pump is a pager sized device that continuously delivers a basal level of insulin through a cannula into the body, the pumps basal delivery rate has to be manually programed to account for actions such as exercise or sleeping. The continuous basal level does not actively change depending on the actual glucose level in the blood and requires a lot of patient involvement. The insulin pump in an artificial pancreas would have to be able to automatically adjust its basal level of insulin secretion to account for the specific needs of the patient for that specific instant.
When biomedical engineers find a way to integrate these systems and miniaturize them to the extent that implantation is possible the results could be game changing. Currently diabetics have to manually monitor their own blood glucose levels with a painful finger prick multiple times a day. They also have to carefully monitor what they eat and this can cause large swings in glucose levels in between testing’s. Diabetes that isn’t carefully monitored can easily result in expensive hospital stays, amputations and eventually death. With an artificial pancreas sufferers of diabetes would no longer have to constantly worry about what they eat or when they perform certain activities like exercising or eating. It would free them from daily insulin injections that have become a part of their lives. In short an artificial pancreas could revolutionize the treatment of diabetes and drastically improve the quality of life of people who suffer from diabetes. In till a cure can be found this solution has the best chance of helping improve the lives of over 25 million Americans, and as biomedical engineers that is what we do.
This artificial pancreas would constantly monitor fluctuations in blood sugar levels and release the appropriate amount of insulin, basically taking over these responsibilities from the defective pancreas. There are two major components needed to perform these tasks. The first is a continuous glucose monitoring device and the second is an insulin pump. These two devices exist separately but they need to be integrated and miniaturized for implantation. Current continuous glucose monitors are cell phone sized and measure glucose in the skin, not the blood, to get results and is not intended for long term monitoring. The continuous glucose monitor used in an artificial pancreas would have to monitor the glucose levels in the blood, with the ability to monitor that patient’s blood sugar level for the rest of their life. While an insulin pump is a pager sized device that continuously delivers a basal level of insulin through a cannula into the body, the pumps basal delivery rate has to be manually programed to account for actions such as exercise or sleeping. The continuous basal level does not actively change depending on the actual glucose level in the blood and requires a lot of patient involvement. The insulin pump in an artificial pancreas would have to be able to automatically adjust its basal level of insulin secretion to account for the specific needs of the patient for that specific instant.
When biomedical engineers find a way to integrate these systems and miniaturize them to the extent that implantation is possible the results could be game changing. Currently diabetics have to manually monitor their own blood glucose levels with a painful finger prick multiple times a day. They also have to carefully monitor what they eat and this can cause large swings in glucose levels in between testing’s. Diabetes that isn’t carefully monitored can easily result in expensive hospital stays, amputations and eventually death. With an artificial pancreas sufferers of diabetes would no longer have to constantly worry about what they eat or when they perform certain activities like exercising or eating. It would free them from daily insulin injections that have become a part of their lives. In short an artificial pancreas could revolutionize the treatment of diabetes and drastically improve the quality of life of people who suffer from diabetes. In till a cure can be found this solution has the best chance of helping improve the lives of over 25 million Americans, and as biomedical engineers that is what we do.
posted by Matthew Hurley at 1:58 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home