How would a closed loop insulin delivery system help in diabetes treatment?
Diabetes Treatment Guidelines Add comments
could someone please explain what it is and the benefits of using it in diabetes treatment?
This one could fill a book. The most important part of managing diabetes and preventing the long term complications of the disease process is control. The traditional system of check sugars before meals and before bed and additionally as needed and treat the sugar accordingly is somewhat similar to swatting a mosquito with a sledgehammer. It’s effective, but clumsy. The human body does not respond to blood sugar in this way. The body makes very small changes in response to very small alterations in blood sugar. The closed loop system is an attempt to more closely mimic the body’s natural response to rising blood sugars. Pros: automatic blood sugar reading (many people don’t treat high sugars because they don’t want to use the tester), smaller correction doses of insulin given throughout the day (instead of a few large doses), and less chance of hypoglycemic episodes because the pump reads your sugar and turns off as soon as you hit target. While high sugars will damage your body over time, low sugar can be just as dangerous, and far more quickly. Cons: It will be expensive, people will still have to change their lifestyles, we still have a ways to go before one is perfected, and of course, technology can always malfunction. Hope this helped.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:51 pm
This one could fill a book. The most important part of managing diabetes and preventing the long term complications of the disease process is control. The traditional system of check sugars before meals and before bed and additionally as needed and treat the sugar accordingly is somewhat similar to swatting a mosquito with a sledgehammer. It’s effective, but clumsy. The human body does not respond to blood sugar in this way. The body makes very small changes in response to very small alterations in blood sugar. The closed loop system is an attempt to more closely mimic the body’s natural response to rising blood sugars. Pros: automatic blood sugar reading (many people don’t treat high sugars because they don’t want to use the tester), smaller correction doses of insulin given throughout the day (instead of a few large doses), and less chance of hypoglycemic episodes because the pump reads your sugar and turns off as soon as you hit target. While high sugars will damage your body over time, low sugar can be just as dangerous, and far more quickly. Cons: It will be expensive, people will still have to change their lifestyles, we still have a ways to go before one is perfected, and of course, technology can always malfunction. Hope this helped.
References :
http://www.jdrf.org/files/APP/CountdownExplainer_AP.pdf