What is an artificial pancreas?

An artificial pancreas combines a glucose monitor with an insulin pump. Griffin Rodgers, MD, director of diabetes, digestive and kidney disease at the National Institutes of Health, explains how this helps those with type 2 diabetes.

Transcript

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The artificial pancreas ties these two technologies together with a computer that can be in the form of a smartphone, for example.

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The other thing that's coming into effect based upon research is the ability to have an artificial pancreas.

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So the pancreas, as we talked about, is destroyed in this autoimmune process. The pancreas normally can sense what the blood sugar levels are

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and appropriately release sufficient quantities of insulin to counteract those highs.

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And conversely, low-- shut off insulin production when the values are too low.

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With the advent of technology now, we can use a continuous glucose monitors

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and one can measure this continuously. And at the same time, we have these insulin pumps and insulin

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can be infused. And the artificial pancreas ties these two technologies together with a computer that can

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be in the form of a smartphone, for example. We find that with better control,

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it's quite likely that some of the other complications, the long-term complications, will also be abated.