Artificial pancreas systems ‘safe’

ARTIFICIAL pancreas systems are “safe and effective” for people with type 1 diabetes, a new study suggests.

Type 1 diabetes patients’ immune systems destroy their insulin-producing pancreatic cells and they need to inject insulin to stay alive.

To achieve the proper blood sugar levels patients need to constantly monitor blood glucose levels – usually through finger pricking – and endure multiple daily injections or use an insulin pump.

An emerging treatment is an artificial pancreas, a device that is designed to release insulin in response to changing blood glucose levels in a similar way to a human pancreas.

A new study, published in the journal BMJ, examined all of the research to date on the use of such items.

Researchers from Greece and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge examined 40 trials on the topic.

They found, although there were some limitations with current research, that: “Artificial pancreas systems are an efficacious and safe approach for treating outpatients with type 1 diabetes.”

Their study found that patients fitted with the devices had longer periods of normal blood sugar throughout the night and over a 24-hour period.

The authors concluded: “In view of all the available evidence from randomised controlled trials, artificial pancreas treatment significantly improves glycaemic control while reducing the burden of hypoglycaemia in outpatients with type 1 diabetes.”