The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its first "artificial pancreas" to automatically control the insulin levels of diabetics. (You know, before the shutdown furloughed almost half of its staff.)
The hormone insulin controls blood sugar levels and is normally produced in the body by the pancreas. But in Type 1 diabetics (and sometimes Type 2), the pancreas just doesn’t make insulin, meaning diabetics’ bodies can’t regulate blood sugar levels. This system, designed by Minneapolis-based medical tech company Medtronic, is a wearable little gadget that stops insulin delivery automatically when glucose levels get too low, hopefully keeping the wearer from going into a diabetic coma.
With a traditional pump, the device can keep delivering insulin even when the your blood sugar is too low, lowering levels even further and sometimes causing loss of consciousness. This is especially dangerous during sleep, when you can’t exactly gauge your own blood sugar. Medtronic’s MiniMed 530G system can detect up to 93 percent of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) episodes, and will sound an alarm to wake you up if your blood sugar gets too low. If you don’t respond, the system will shut off insulin delivery for two hours, hopefully staving off dangerously low blood sugar levels.