Photo: Towfiqu Barbhuiya | Unsplash
The lives of more than 100,000 people with type 1 diabetes in England and Wales could be changed thanks to a new technology that has the potential to revolutionize the way we treat the condition. The idea for an artificial pancreas – also called closed-loop system – has been around since the late 1970’s, but only recently has it become a feasible option for people with type 1 diabetes. The technology works by mimicking the functioning of a real pancreas. It uses a glucose sensor placed under the skin to automatically calculate, with an algorithm, how much insulin to deliver via a pump, freeing people with type 1 diabetes from having to closely monitor levels of sugar in their blood manually and from having to take daily injections. The UK’s National Health Service held a world-first trial of the technology last year fitting hundreds of adults and children with type 1 diabetes with an artificial pancreas and found that the technology was more successful than any other device currently available to manage the disease.
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