Diabetes Breakthrough: Insulin-Delivery System Manages Blood Sugar
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Diabetics have had insulin pumps and sensors available for the past 10 years, but new research on Medtronic’s MiniMed670G hybrid system means that pumps and sensors can now “talk” to each other. The result: newfound freedom for people with Type I diabetes.
Claire Bickel, a Connecticut teenager who is just finishing her freshman year of high school, became the first pediatric patient to get the new device as part of a company trial of the system. She was diagnosed with Type I diabetes just before her fifth birthday. The diagnosis has meant years of constant worry for her mother, Francesca Bickel.
Her doctor — pediatric endocrinologist, Dr. Jennifer Sherr at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital’s diabetes clinic — also suffered a lifetime with Type I diabetes. And when Medtronic developed the new pump she was included in the trial.
After years of waking up at night to check and correct her blood sugar, the pump — which monitors and adjusts glucose levels continuously — allowed her to get a full night’s sleep.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God! This is what sleep is!’ ” she tells Newsmax Health. “My kids told me I was nicer just because I was sleeping at night.
“Our bodies are not pre-programmed for stress, exercise and food, and, so something that recognizes these changes is phenomenal.”
The device is particularly beneficial for younger diabetics, she notes.
“It’s so important for pediatrics because we have worked tirelessly to keep Claire’s life normal,” Sherr says. “Often times she and her mother would be up at night checking her blood sugar. Now her sleep is better, her school work is better, and she’s enjoying being in a play at school.”
The sensor works with a tiny catheter with a needle, under the skin, which detects glucose in the fluid that surrounds skin tissues. Past insulin pumps gave pre-set amounts of the hormone, or different levels for different times of the day. You had to tell them to give extra insulin depending on how many carbs you ate.
But the new device constantly monitors blood sugar levels and insulin delivery to correct them is automatic. The catheter is changed every seven days and the pump is changed every two or three days.
“It is still a lot for a patient to worry about, but it is a massive change in the diabetes paradigm,” Sherr says.
Francesca Bickel notes the old pump her daughter used to use required a lot of work.
“There was constant decision making and troubleshooting every day,” she says. “This takes some of that away and Claire can focus on being a teenager.
“This new pump takes a lot of the burden off of going low. It does what the older pumps couldn’t do. It’s not a total closed loop where you never have to worry, so if your blood sugar shoots up fast, it can’t adjust for that. But Claire’s blood sugar is low a lot less often because it is better regulated. Without activity, at night, the pump does an amazing job.”
Type I diabetes is an autoimmune disease that kills insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Insulin is the hormone that allows the body to process and store glucose. This new technology, allowing the sensor to communicate with the pump, is a real game changer for people living with Type I diabetes.
Sherr, an assistant professor of pediatric endocrinology at the Yale School of Medicine, notes Yale was chosen as a site for launching the 670G system because the university has experience in training individuals.
Claire was a good candidate for the first pediatric patient on the system because she has been very involved in her diabetes care. More than 26,000 people in the U.S. have Type I diabetes, and about 900 patients being treated at Yale’s clinic