Research offers promise for diabetics

[steven johnson]

Research toward an artifician pancreas to help diabetics has made a leap forward.

Boston researchers have made a major step toward the development of an artificial pancreas that overcomes the bugaboo of most previous such attempts -- dangerously low blood sugar caused by injection of too much insulin.

Their experimental device secretes two hormones normally produced by the pancreas -- insulin and its counterbalancing hormone, called glucagon -- and has been shown to control blood sugar levels in about a dozen people for at least 24 hours, they reported Wednesday.

The team is now planning longer trials as they gear up for what they hope will be approval by the Food and Drug Administration in as little as seven years.

"This is a very important proof-of-concept study," said Dr. Irl B. Hirsch, an endocrinologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research. "It was becoming obvious that if we were ever going to get , we would have to use both hormones. . . . The fact that they have been able to do so successfully is very big and very exciting news."




Research offers promise for diabetics

[IDemo]

1. I'm not quite sure why we're looking at 7 years (if we're lucky)

Insulin pumps and blood glucose monitors have been around for quite awhile. Incorporating a dual reservoir unit to accommodate glucagon shouldn't take appreciably longer.

[TZ]

2. Clinical trials

They has to be fully tested before it can be marketed. A full term trial averages 7-10 years. A fast track can shorten the time to about 3-5 years. As much as I want to see people helped by this, as someone who works on clinical trials, its not a smart idea to cut out testing time....