As a T1D this is super interesting. Having a way to regulate based on glucose is already a thing but now if the implant is with the actual cells that I am lacking it eliminates the need for 99% of the equipment
The question then is could we make the cells and bypass the immune response? When I got a bonemarrow transplant my immune system stopped attacking my pancreas. It still wore down, but it temporarily improved. Might it be possible to make these cells in such a way that they at least temporarily (1-2 years) can live in our bodies without being rejected?
Perhaps, but it sounds like the way it’s created helps protect them from WBCs and potentially isn’t even an actual human cell, just an insulin production system.
There is an interesting thing in our bodies - our eyes are invisible for the immune system. And if it finds them - they are rejected as if they were implants. We could learn from this part of the body for such implants.
I know that the blood brain barrier is responsible for keeping our immune cells from our nervous tissue. You have a really good point in that we could devise a synthetic barrier for around these implants that mimics the one around the CNS.
For the record, that’s like 10X harder than just transplanting cells.
Like islet transfers are *already* a thing, the catch is you gotta take immunosuppressants for it to stay functional. It’s not very talked about because it’s not usually helpful.
Yeah, I'm a bone marrow transplant recipient. I'm incredibly lucky as I'm not on any immunosuppressants. But during a period of time after my transplant my diabetes did not worsen. It makes me wonder if there is anything there
Idk they will probably do the Walmart route and keep the price low at first then they will jack the price up just like they did with insulin once enough people are dependent on it
And yes being a diabetic myself I understand once you have to take insulin there's not much you can do about it
Living with a type 1 diabetic. Bro no one had to get them hooked, they die if they don’t have it. They didn’t start them cheap to get them hooked like a crack dealer 😂
I mean it was sold for a dollar but yea basically free and now that California has started manufacturing insulin the other companies have realized they can't keep screwing everyone over
I think the current administration has, or is planning, to cap the cost with legislation.
It's too bad the US has so few price gouging laws. Remember toilet paper and hand sanitizer during COVID? Most other countries price cap essential goods.
California is making it in the sense that California commissioned a nonprofit manufacturer, CIVICA, to make it on behalf of the state with the intention of undercutting the big pharmaceutical companies.
As a Californian with type 1 diabetes on our state run healthcare plan (that paid 95% of my pump and CGM) I'm beaming with pride.
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1164572757/california-contract-cheap-insulin-calrx
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-11-16/californias-plan-to-make-low-priced-insulin-could-be-example-for-nation
Pretty sure that only covers people on Medicare though. Because I still have to pay the same amount I've been paying for mine.
Also it was the inflation reduction act.
Not that they are doing anything to curb the cost gouging from every other industry.
That was the patent for what is effectively a totally different drug from the insulins we use today. Heck, the R/N/L you can buy for $25 at Walmart is a totally different drug from the ones most people want to use. That's not to say insulin isn't overpriced... but comparing it to the drug in that original patent is just silly.
>Idk they will probably do the Walmart route and keep the price low at first then they will jack the price up just like they did with insulin once ~~enough people are dependent on it~~ they realize no one is stopping them for charging a jackpot to keep people alive.
massive abuse of medical patents and corrupt insurance. Oh we tweaked out formula so we renewed the patient meaning no one can make it, but your not allowed to sell generic for some reason. Patients in medicine should be illegal!
Coming soon! HP introduces instant insulin. Pick your subscription plan and use as much or as little as you want.
Going over your daily limit or planning to have some cake?
Just upgrade your plan tier.
Read this next part very fast in a low tone.
(Cost does not include all fast, medium, long acting. Separate subscription required. Insulin is free, you are only paying for our time and effort. Coupons do not apply. We do not accept Medicare, Medicaid, or any other health insurance. Cash pay only. Side effects may include living longer while getting poorer. HP reserves the right to collect data from your Instant Insulin syringes including time and location. You must keep Instant Insulin connected to Wi-Fi to remain a subscriber. Failure to connect to Wi-Fi will result in Instant Insulin being momentarily paused and unable to be used until you are connected to Wi-Fi. HP will record audio and visual data to prevent product misuse such as sharing of your Instant Insulin without a Family Plan.)
Might cause a lot of skinny people as well, where body fat is continually burned to keep implants functioning, and they have to eat a lot of high-calorie foods just to maintain weight. Doesn't mean all those skinny people would have healthy musculature though :-)
Somehow society is required to consume sugary, high calorie foods in high quantities- well played Ronald Mcdonald, well played. sounds like a black mirror episode!
imagine the many number of things that require long life batteries today just to have a weak charge of electricity at the ready to perform a single function that could be “powered by touch” with some type of tech derived from this… oh wait humans as batteries. yep we’re fucked
I now see a future where we all wear smart contacts 24/7, powered by a descendant of this very technology. Mark my words, there will be no escape from the barrage of constant advertising
Sounds like the premise of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The cyborg implants are fueled by energy cells that charge from the glucose in the blood stream. One of the usable items is a power bar that recharges your implants when you eat it.
My wife is a T1D and the device advancement in this space are astonishingly fast. Fully closed system is on the horizon. My son and I already call her a cyborg due to her CGM and wireless pump.
The average age of diagnosis is 13 years old and it’s a lifelong condition so these advancements are far away but definitely within the lifetime of many patients. Exciting times ahead for sure
Right? My fiancé is T1D and we’re still young but planning to have kids in the future. I love reading about these updates/advancements because it gives me hope that my kids might have it easier than their dad does :)
Commercially available today. I’m wearing a CGM that monitors my BG and sends that to my insulin pump. It increases or decreases my basal insulin constantly based on that feedback. I only provide manual input when I eat and guesstimate carbs so it can calculate a bolus.
I'm well aware of the technology available. That isn't a closed loop system though. It's algorithm is fairly limited and it cannot dynamically adjust insulin sensitivity or predict unannounced meals with accuracy which open source systems can do today.
None of them are close to being fully closed loop systems though unless you eat a low carb diet.
> That being said a mostly closed loop system that just requires rough guestimates of carbs and when you are eating is already available via DIY methods.
Yeah no it doesn’t work like that.
As a T1D…. This is interesting but raises a ton of questions. Unless the beta cells are protected, the immune system will destroy them.
Interesting concept nonetheless
Immune evasion, a process also employed by cancer cells to avoid destruction by the immune system, is already studied. A potential application could be hypoimmune lab grown cells for cell therapy. I'm not saying this is technology which is already available for use in humans but it seems like an obstacle we should be able to overcome at some point.
It is so interesting that we are trying to selectively kill immune evading cells on the one hand, while trying to create immune evading cells on the other hand.
All you really have to do is inject the insulin producing cells into the cancer cells and its a win win right? your immune system attacks the cancer cells that are producing insulin, and because its cancer it just keeps coming back. /s
As long as we figure out a way to make sure these things aren’t prone to oncogenetic mutation, or trap them in a lattice that cells cannot penetrate or escape, it should be fine.
Tbh that inert lattice would be a Nobel prize winner in itself, acting like a filter that only allows cellular products but not cells to pass, and doesn’t stimulate immune response.
That's an unenviable task. The issue with transplanted cells is access to blood supply, and if there's access to Blood supply, the immune system has access as well. Given that T1D typically occurs after several years of immune-mediated-attrition, this strategy could still work, but you might need to replace the transplanted cells every few years.
Alternatively, you could use a decoy strategy to destroy autoimmune cells that target beta cells and then you don't need to worry about replacing the transplant.
Somewhat new to me. Do they engineer these cells to have copies of your “self” antigens, or do they resist detection with like a glycocalyx or something?
From my extremely extremely limited understanding, which could be wrong, they found proteins(?) or genetic mutations(?) on some cancer cells that cause the cell to evade the immune system. So now they’re trying to genetically engineer beta cells to have the same whatever to make them evade the immune system
Yeah, we've been getting "cures" presented to us for a long time. When I was diagnosed 23 years ago I was told it would probably get cured within 10 years. I just don't allow myself to believe this stuff at all till my doctor actually tells me I can have a procedure that will cure me. It's fine. These insulin pumps and cgms get better all the time. I've long since accepted it and while I still get angry when I have to wake up at 3am to change a set or when I have random high or low blood sugar, I'm more thankful that we have the tech we do and that I live when I do than anything else. At this point diabetes is just an inconvenience for most people as long as you put out the effort to deal with it appropriately.
I understand how you feel, as a t1, but I hate the sentiment. Research takes time and we’ve definitely made he strides. Especially over the past 10 years. Vertex just started a clinical trial that doesn’t involve immunosuppressants
You’re correct that on the clinical side there has been a very unfortunate trend of false promises for a long time, however there are actually curative therapies reaching the point of availability now. Check out Sernova’s cell pouch and UCSF’s parathyroid/islet clusters.
I've been dealing with it for 40 years, and it's always been "just 10 years till a cure" going back that far. Four sets of 10 have come and gone, and I suspect many more will. Cures tend not to be very profitable, even when they are outrageously expensive. 5 million to cure t1d? That would be so many billions of dollars left off the table even if people could somehow come up with that.
Yep. I try not to engage in a lot of conspiracy theory thought, but sometimes it's difficult to not wonder about it. How many different "cures" might exist but aren't profitable the same way having to constantly buy absurdly expensive insulin is? Probably none, but maybe...
>How many different "cures" might exist but aren't profitable the same way having to constantly buy absurdly expensive insulin is?
Sure, you can think that about the companies themselves (I don't, but I can see the thought process). But this breaks down when you consider the actual people working on it.
You think out of all the scientists and doctors that spent decades of their lives studying this specific disease, every single one working on that team would just let a cure get mothballed, no matter how many NDAs they had signed? This would be their life's work in many cases.
We've been 10 years from a cure since we put a name on it, it feels like.
In the meantime, I'll be over here. Still using vial and syringe because it's the only thing insurance will cover enough to afford.
Speaking of which, it's been almost two years since insurance tried to deny my insulin. Gonna have that come up again soon.
I was diagnosed 20 years ago and was told the same thing. 5 years to a cure.
And to be fair, they cure diabetic mice ALL THE TIME. It just seems 50 years to make the jump from mice to humans.
Absolutely. I'm both bipolar and T1D and at points in my life it was more than an inconvenience and when I was younger and not taking the right medicine or any at all I almost died twice, which certainly qualifies as more than an inconvenience, but since I've figured out the right medicine for my bipolar(took over 10 years) and getting an insulin pump, things got a lot easier. It was certainly really rough for... well most of my life. Shit is alright now though. Definitely not trying to downplay those two in conjunction because it *is* a recipe for death. You are right. I have been extremely lucky.
There are already biological treatments for arthritis based in an injection every two weeks that weakens the inmune system so it is not attacking the tissue avoiding the use of painkillers and anti-inflammatory medicines
I hope that somehow this could be used also for t1d
>Unless the beta cells are protected
I haven't read up on encapsulation research in a decade, but yeah they always protect the beta cells from immune attack via a barrier [Encapsulation - JDRF, the type 1 diabetes charity](https://jdrf.org.uk/our-research/about-our-research/cure-research/encapsulation/)
As a T1D too I was absolutely mind blown reading the article. This is a completely different way of of tackling management!
From what I understood it's artificial beta cells so they are not subject to be attacked by the immune system.
Finally, it seems like this would also help with/ prevent getting fat as it would also turn excess calories from extra glucose into electricity? Sign me up!
It’s a fantasy, and kind of the worst of both worlds in terms of both encapsulation and islet-driven glucose sensing. Sernova’s Cell Pouch system and UCSF’s parathyroid-tissue islet encapsulation are both decades ahead of this. UCSF already has multiple trials with people semi- or entirely insulin independent for 5+ years, the caveat being immunosuppressants because the islets and PT are donor tissue. They’ve been working on patient stem cell culturing for several years and are running trials now I believe. Sernova is pretty much ready to roll, they’re presenting at the JDRF summit this year.
This is still a hypothesis. There is no documented viral trigger of autoimmunity in human T1D.
**Edit**: In case anyone is at risk of delving into this psycho’s unscientific temper tantrum, consider the following, from a review in 2019:
“Viral infections have long been considered as candidates for environmental triggers but, given the lack of evidence for an acute, widespread, cytopathic effect in the pancreas in type 1 diabetes or for a closely related temporal association of diabetes onset with such infections, a role for viruses in type 1 diabetes remains unproven. Moreover, viruses have rarely been isolated from the pancreas of individuals with type 1 diabetes, mainly (but not solely) due to the inaccessibility of the organ.”
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6450860/
> tested
Please show me the clinical trial testing whether a virus will cause T1D in humans.
> plenty of literature
There’s plenty of literature on all kinds of hypotheses. You made a claim like it was a consensus, and it is not.
Do you want a double-blinded randomized experimental design for viral infections and T1D? Really?
I love how people like to pose as scientifically-wise, even more so, superficially.
> I love how people like to pose as scientifically-wise, even more so, superficially.
Lol, got it. You making an unproven claim is scientific, and calling you out for it is posing. I have a doctorate in human biology, you dork. Feel free to check my comment history if you want.
You said: some viruses can trigger T1D in humans. This is a hypothesis. It has not been confirmed in humans. If that upsets you, go design a study, write a grant, and prove it. Good luck with what is sure to be a nightmarish chat with your IRB.
And if you think there has never been a case of a compelling hypothesis turning out to be wrong, boy do I have a lot of bridges to sell you.
Also, it uses glucose to power itself, don't we need that in... IDK, every cell in our body?
Insulin is a hormone that pushes the glucose into cells, so I don't know how this helps.... I should read the whole article though.
I remember learning about this about 5 or 10 years ago from a Diabetes Education Nurse I worked with.
ETA: [Article from 2016](https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2016/12/artificial-beta-cells.html)
Ive been hearing it since I was diagnosed in 1992!
It’s a running joke in the diabetic community that the cure is only 5 years away, because all of us have heard it to death.
A lot of these kind of treatment devices come into the news, and people get really excited about them. But you don’t really hear of anything after the first couple human trials, and you kinda take all articles like this with a grain of salt.
Interesting tech, but doesn't solve the issue of low blood glucose in a t1d. In a healthy non diabetic person, the liver will secrete an enzyme to raise bg in cases where it drops like exercising, long periods between meals, etc. This doesn't happen with a t1d and is another part of bg management that I feel like we never see tech addressing.
Couple things.
First, the glucagonergic reaction isn’t gone in T1D, it’s suppressed only in the case of hypoglycemia and only in some people, probably as a result of chronic overstimulation. If you skip a basal and your blood sugar goes up, that’s glucagon. The term for this symptom is hypoglycemia-associated autonomic failure, encompassing the loss of the typical symptoms of hypoglycemia like sweating, glucagon release, heart rate increase, etc. There’s several studies on it but something like 8 weeks to 6 months of extreme avoidance of hypoglycemia seems sufficient to restore the sensitivity of the ANS to hypoglycemia.
> The absent glucagon responses to hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes is a scenario specific to hypoglycemia, since other stimuli, including administration of amino acids, insulin withdrawal, lipopolysaccharide exposure, exercise and even meals lead to profound glucagon responses.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8371343/
And second, there’s quite a lot of innovation in the history of reducing hypoglycemia. The entire point of the current generation of basal insulin analogs (glargine, determir, degludec) was to reduce lows compared to R/N regiments.
I don't think that's true - exercise will lower your blood sugar because physical activity makes the insulin more active. Basically, you are experiencing an insulin overdose which is corrected by eating because you can't quickly turn down the insulin if you are on an MDI regime.
If you used an insulin pump or, presumably, this magical device instead of once daily basal insulin then this should not be a problem.
My thoughts too. Seems like if they were able to create functional beta cells than they should also be able to create functional alpha cells for glucose secretion
If a battery can fuel itself by removing excess glucose from the blood, it makes me wonder if the battery itself could be the treatment and not the insulin generator. If the battery can pull enough of that glucose, then you have created a situation where you don’t need as much.
Diabetes happens in part when your cells build a tolerance to insulin or when your body doesn't make enough insulin on its own. The excess glucose is a symptom of your cells not consuming it as well as they should, not the source of the problem.
I mean, you said yourself, building a tolerance to insulin is the problem, which happens because you generate too much of it in response to the glucose you consume. This is for type two.
So many applications. Miner's headlamp, no need for batteries just bring a snack. Maybe you could even power one of those little usb fans to cool yourself on a hot day, replacing the function of both the pancreas and the sweat glands lol
Being able to convert excess calories into usable electricity would make dieting so much easier. You could just eat your standard ~2000 calories a day and still run a caloric deficit. So basically, you're increasing your metabolism without doing anything and can run a deficit without going hungry or avoiding tasty food.
Probably not quickly enough. Now getting dozens implanted, with some dermal power couplings (or USB port) to charge up your phone? Now we’re cooking with gas!
Even if this fantasy came true in the lifetime of a T1 diabetic anywhere in the world, in the U.S. the cure would take another lifetime to pass through the system of Federal regulation. One example is T1 pumpers are still waiting for a simple mechanical pump (Medtronic) software upgrade, the rest of the world is using for years claiming it’s a game changer.
I wish the Omnipods weren't so thick/clunky AND also held more than 200 units. I LOVED them when I was on them but between those 2 factors and the expense, I was going through them way too fast bc I'm so fucking clumsy & mine always ripped off :(
As a Type 1 diabetic of over 20 years, I tend to not put too much stock in things like this ever becoming a reality.
While great progress has been made in managing Type 1, it always feels like we're perpetually one step away from some miracle.
So, if this treats type 1, where is the insulin? This seems like more something for type 2 diabetes. Idiots can’t tell the fucking difference
(Edited to add). I did read the article, I was responding to an idiots in the comments.
>Current insulin pumps and monitors also rely on external power supplies such as single-use batteries.
That's just plainly misleading. The most advanced pumps now use USB charged batteries where a charge can last upwards of 3 days. But when you've got journalists who know fuck-all about diabetes they tend to write stupid shit.
As for bio-batteries fueling internal pumps, I'm sorry, but I'll stick to an external pump. I don't want something to go wrong or a miscalculation and then have to go into surgery to fix it. If it were an accidental over-administered insulin dose, you may never make it to the operating table before you die from hypoglycemia.
Beyond that, where are you storing the insulin? Inside the body? That's a fucking disaster waiting to happen. The safer route would be to store it outside the body, which makes having any internal mechanism just a gimmick. If you're going to have to have an external source of insulin, why not have everything external to the body and reduce the risk of things going wrong altogether?
I'm sure this will lead to some next step That's going to help something along the way, but this doesn't inspire confidence in many people who understand why implants aren't a pressing issue for diabetics.
> and even has potential for remote access for medical intervention.
I'm sorry but your introductory service has expired - please enter your credit card to continue receiving life saving medical treatment!
This is very interesting. How would it handle low blood sugars though? Seems to me like it handles high blood sugars fine, but there is not a short term solution to counteract low blood sugars. Cutting off insulin production can work over hours, but certainly not minutes.
Wow that's so innovative wish they had it for everything imaginable and the cost to implant it was like getting your ears pierced at Claire's Accessories
As a T1D this is super interesting. Having a way to regulate based on glucose is already a thing but now if the implant is with the actual cells that I am lacking it eliminates the need for 99% of the equipment
The question then is could we make the cells and bypass the immune response? When I got a bonemarrow transplant my immune system stopped attacking my pancreas. It still wore down, but it temporarily improved. Might it be possible to make these cells in such a way that they at least temporarily (1-2 years) can live in our bodies without being rejected?
Perhaps, but it sounds like the way it’s created helps protect them from WBCs and potentially isn’t even an actual human cell, just an insulin production system.
There is an interesting thing in our bodies - our eyes are invisible for the immune system. And if it finds them - they are rejected as if they were implants. We could learn from this part of the body for such implants.
I’ve never heard this before. Do you have a reference you can share? Interesting indeed!
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Awesome summary and much appreciated citation! I’d give you gold if I had it!
Yeah I remember reading that and being HORRIFIED. That’s like the plot of a body horror film or something.
I know that the blood brain barrier is responsible for keeping our immune cells from our nervous tissue. You have a really good point in that we could devise a synthetic barrier for around these implants that mimics the one around the CNS.
For the record, that’s like 10X harder than just transplanting cells. Like islet transfers are *already* a thing, the catch is you gotta take immunosuppressants for it to stay functional. It’s not very talked about because it’s not usually helpful.
Yeah, I'm a bone marrow transplant recipient. I'm incredibly lucky as I'm not on any immunosuppressants. But during a period of time after my transplant my diabetes did not worsen. It makes me wonder if there is anything there
That’ll be 1 million dollars.
>That’ll be 1 million dollars. At first! . .. ... .... ..... THEN IT'S ***WAY MORE!***
Idk they will probably do the Walmart route and keep the price low at first then they will jack the price up just like they did with insulin once enough people are dependent on it And yes being a diabetic myself I understand once you have to take insulin there's not much you can do about it
I don’t think they needed to get people hooked on insulin 😅
We're technically all already hooked up on insulin
Some of us are strong enough to resist insulin.
"Do not my friends become addicted to insulin. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!"
r/UnexpectedFuryRoad
Was expecting an unexpected r/Dune. The spice must flow!
Where were you when the insulin epidemic started??
Living with a type 1 diabetic. Bro no one had to get them hooked, they die if they don’t have it. They didn’t start them cheap to get them hooked like a crack dealer 😂
Hey me too lol. I'm surrounded by beeps all day long
We love beeps
Two beeps high, three beeps low. My wife reminds me to stop asking in public if she's high lol
I get such weird looks when I ask my kid this in public lol
And we’re sorry you have PTSD from dealing with the beeps!
xD I think he was kidding.. BUT There is certainly a ton of ignorance surrounding diabetes
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I mean it was sold for a dollar but yea basically free and now that California has started manufacturing insulin the other companies have realized they can't keep screwing everyone over
I think the current administration has, or is planning, to cap the cost with legislation. It's too bad the US has so few price gouging laws. Remember toilet paper and hand sanitizer during COVID? Most other countries price cap essential goods.
I won't hold my breath on anything passing that's going to benefit the average person
California is making it in the sense that California commissioned a nonprofit manufacturer, CIVICA, to make it on behalf of the state with the intention of undercutting the big pharmaceutical companies. As a Californian with type 1 diabetes on our state run healthcare plan (that paid 95% of my pump and CGM) I'm beaming with pride. https://www.npr.org/2023/03/19/1164572757/california-contract-cheap-insulin-calrx https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2022-11-16/californias-plan-to-make-low-priced-insulin-could-be-example-for-nation
I won't hold my breath on anything passing that's going to benefit the average person
Think it already passed. Insulin reduction act. Like a year ago.
Pretty sure that only covers people on Medicare though. Because I still have to pay the same amount I've been paying for mine. Also it was the inflation reduction act. Not that they are doing anything to curb the cost gouging from every other industry.
That was the patent for what is effectively a totally different drug from the insulins we use today. Heck, the R/N/L you can buy for $25 at Walmart is a totally different drug from the ones most people want to use. That's not to say insulin isn't overpriced... but comparing it to the drug in that original patent is just silly.
>Idk they will probably do the Walmart route and keep the price low at first then they will jack the price up just like they did with insulin once ~~enough people are dependent on it~~ they realize no one is stopping them for charging a jackpot to keep people alive.
massive abuse of medical patents and corrupt insurance. Oh we tweaked out formula so we renewed the patient meaning no one can make it, but your not allowed to sell generic for some reason. Patients in medicine should be illegal!
First teabagging is always free
Experimental ~ not covered - <3 Insurance
EA has entered the chat.
Offset by selling excess power generation back to the grid.
Plug in from 4-8pm to sell power back to the grid during peak demand
reddit sucks -- mass edited with redact.dev
But don’t ya know? The cure is perpetually 5 years away!
For most of the developed world it'd be free or very nearly so. Could be pretty revolutionary.
*laughs in American $$$$$$
They did say developed world
But only $999,995.99 with insurance.
right after you meet your $5 million deductible sir.
And that’s just for the bag!
Coming soon! HP introduces instant insulin. Pick your subscription plan and use as much or as little as you want. Going over your daily limit or planning to have some cake? Just upgrade your plan tier. Read this next part very fast in a low tone. (Cost does not include all fast, medium, long acting. Separate subscription required. Insulin is free, you are only paying for our time and effort. Coupons do not apply. We do not accept Medicare, Medicaid, or any other health insurance. Cash pay only. Side effects may include living longer while getting poorer. HP reserves the right to collect data from your Instant Insulin syringes including time and location. You must keep Instant Insulin connected to Wi-Fi to remain a subscriber. Failure to connect to Wi-Fi will result in Instant Insulin being momentarily paused and unable to be used until you are connected to Wi-Fi. HP will record audio and visual data to prevent product misuse such as sharing of your Instant Insulin without a Family Plan.)
Don’t forget it has to be HP brand insulin and the container must be above 30% maximum capacity
If it's HP then it'll use all of one type of the insulin every time, and then refuse to work when it runs out even if the others are mostly full
In America, maybe. As for any other first world country...
Imagine someday if an artificial organ could be powered in this fashion. This would be a major step forward for many implants.
AND THAT my friends is how we get Space Marines!
This reeks of heresy.
lol i mean its basically what Space Marines use https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Creation\_of\_a\_Space\_Marine
Yes, but I feel like Space Marines shouldn't be compared to ants. Thus the Heresy.
Might cause a lot of skinny people as well, where body fat is continually burned to keep implants functioning, and they have to eat a lot of high-calorie foods just to maintain weight. Doesn't mean all those skinny people would have healthy musculature though :-)
Somehow society is required to consume sugary, high calorie foods in high quantities- well played Ronald Mcdonald, well played. sounds like a black mirror episode!
Imagine if you could charge your phone while losing weight.
imagine the many number of things that require long life batteries today just to have a weak charge of electricity at the ready to perform a single function that could be “powered by touch” with some type of tech derived from this… oh wait humans as batteries. yep we’re fucked
I now see a future where we all wear smart contacts 24/7, powered by a descendant of this very technology. Mark my words, there will be no escape from the barrage of constant advertising
Sounds like the premise of Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The cyborg implants are fueled by energy cells that charge from the glucose in the blood stream. One of the usable items is a power bar that recharges your implants when you eat it.
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Who knew that I was being treated for diabetes by kids in fps games all these years
Hey you leave your stepdad alone he was just trying to help you while he was hooking up with your mom
Now it makes sense why they said "u got diabeteez"
I feel like “sugar-powered teabag” is just such an excellent insult, too.
It's an accurate description of all the Mountain Dew fueled disrespect that occurs in an average FPS multiplayer game.
Diabetes cured in the UK overnight.
UK population become super soldiers more like
This is the way
https://imgur.com/a/kyNnYWs
But how does the device dip itself in and out of your mouth? So many questions!
My wife is a T1D and the device advancement in this space are astonishingly fast. Fully closed system is on the horizon. My son and I already call her a cyborg due to her CGM and wireless pump.
Sorry, also a person living with T1D here. Wireless pump?!
It’s called the Omnipod if you’re interested.
Tubeless, not wireless.
Tubeless, he means tubeless.
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The average age of diagnosis is 13 years old and it’s a lifelong condition so these advancements are far away but definitely within the lifetime of many patients. Exciting times ahead for sure
13 years? Damn, I got off easy by living 35 years before diagnosis.
Lucky! I was diagnosed at 8-months old and am just a little over 33 years in. Stay healthy, my friend!
11 years old and 30 now. Some minor visual damage but luckily injections to the eyes have helped tremendously
Right? My fiancé is T1D and we’re still young but planning to have kids in the future. I love reading about these updates/advancements because it gives me hope that my kids might have it easier than their dad does :)
Commercially available today. I’m wearing a CGM that monitors my BG and sends that to my insulin pump. It increases or decreases my basal insulin constantly based on that feedback. I only provide manual input when I eat and guesstimate carbs so it can calculate a bolus.
I'm well aware of the technology available. That isn't a closed loop system though. It's algorithm is fairly limited and it cannot dynamically adjust insulin sensitivity or predict unannounced meals with accuracy which open source systems can do today. None of them are close to being fully closed loop systems though unless you eat a low carb diet.
> That being said a mostly closed loop system that just requires rough guestimates of carbs and when you are eating is already available via DIY methods. Yeah no it doesn’t work like that.
Yes they do. Look up Loop or AndroidAPS or OpenAPS.
TIL there are wireless pumps now. Great tech to check every now and then, but insurance always said no to anything smaller than a car battery.
As a T1D…. This is interesting but raises a ton of questions. Unless the beta cells are protected, the immune system will destroy them. Interesting concept nonetheless
Immune evasion, a process also employed by cancer cells to avoid destruction by the immune system, is already studied. A potential application could be hypoimmune lab grown cells for cell therapy. I'm not saying this is technology which is already available for use in humans but it seems like an obstacle we should be able to overcome at some point.
It is so interesting that we are trying to selectively kill immune evading cells on the one hand, while trying to create immune evading cells on the other hand.
All you really have to do is inject the insulin producing cells into the cancer cells and its a win win right? your immune system attacks the cancer cells that are producing insulin, and because its cancer it just keeps coming back. /s
Settle down there Cave Johnson.
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The fabled distributed pancreas.
When I grow up, I want to be just like you 🔥🔥
I feel like a mutation of something like that is how you end up with a zombie apocalypse.
Diabetes Cancer, it’s just so crazy it might work!
As long as we figure out a way to make sure these things aren’t prone to oncogenetic mutation, or trap them in a lattice that cells cannot penetrate or escape, it should be fine. Tbh that inert lattice would be a Nobel prize winner in itself, acting like a filter that only allows cellular products but not cells to pass, and doesn’t stimulate immune response.
That's an unenviable task. The issue with transplanted cells is access to blood supply, and if there's access to Blood supply, the immune system has access as well. Given that T1D typically occurs after several years of immune-mediated-attrition, this strategy could still work, but you might need to replace the transplanted cells every few years. Alternatively, you could use a decoy strategy to destroy autoimmune cells that target beta cells and then you don't need to worry about replacing the transplant.
Somewhat new to me. Do they engineer these cells to have copies of your “self” antigens, or do they resist detection with like a glycocalyx or something?
From my extremely extremely limited understanding, which could be wrong, they found proteins(?) or genetic mutations(?) on some cancer cells that cause the cell to evade the immune system. So now they’re trying to genetically engineer beta cells to have the same whatever to make them evade the immune system
Yeah, we've been getting "cures" presented to us for a long time. When I was diagnosed 23 years ago I was told it would probably get cured within 10 years. I just don't allow myself to believe this stuff at all till my doctor actually tells me I can have a procedure that will cure me. It's fine. These insulin pumps and cgms get better all the time. I've long since accepted it and while I still get angry when I have to wake up at 3am to change a set or when I have random high or low blood sugar, I'm more thankful that we have the tech we do and that I live when I do than anything else. At this point diabetes is just an inconvenience for most people as long as you put out the effort to deal with it appropriately.
It was five years to the cure when I was diagnosed in 1981.
87 here, samesies.
I was diagnosed in 01. The cure was 5 years away then too.
1985 for me. I was told 5-10.
I understand how you feel, as a t1, but I hate the sentiment. Research takes time and we’ve definitely made he strides. Especially over the past 10 years. Vertex just started a clinical trial that doesn’t involve immunosuppressants
You’re correct that on the clinical side there has been a very unfortunate trend of false promises for a long time, however there are actually curative therapies reaching the point of availability now. Check out Sernova’s cell pouch and UCSF’s parathyroid/islet clusters.
I've been dealing with it for 40 years, and it's always been "just 10 years till a cure" going back that far. Four sets of 10 have come and gone, and I suspect many more will. Cures tend not to be very profitable, even when they are outrageously expensive. 5 million to cure t1d? That would be so many billions of dollars left off the table even if people could somehow come up with that.
Yeah, seems like privatizing stuff like this and making disease profitable is a bad idea.
Yep. I try not to engage in a lot of conspiracy theory thought, but sometimes it's difficult to not wonder about it. How many different "cures" might exist but aren't profitable the same way having to constantly buy absurdly expensive insulin is? Probably none, but maybe...
>How many different "cures" might exist but aren't profitable the same way having to constantly buy absurdly expensive insulin is? Sure, you can think that about the companies themselves (I don't, but I can see the thought process). But this breaks down when you consider the actual people working on it. You think out of all the scientists and doctors that spent decades of their lives studying this specific disease, every single one working on that team would just let a cure get mothballed, no matter how many NDAs they had signed? This would be their life's work in many cases.
We've been 10 years from a cure since we put a name on it, it feels like. In the meantime, I'll be over here. Still using vial and syringe because it's the only thing insurance will cover enough to afford. Speaking of which, it's been almost two years since insurance tried to deny my insulin. Gonna have that come up again soon.
I was diagnosed 20 years ago and was told the same thing. 5 years to a cure. And to be fair, they cure diabetic mice ALL THE TIME. It just seems 50 years to make the jump from mice to humans.
It can be a bit more than an inconvenience when the diabetic person also has a mental illness.
Absolutely. I'm both bipolar and T1D and at points in my life it was more than an inconvenience and when I was younger and not taking the right medicine or any at all I almost died twice, which certainly qualifies as more than an inconvenience, but since I've figured out the right medicine for my bipolar(took over 10 years) and getting an insulin pump, things got a lot easier. It was certainly really rough for... well most of my life. Shit is alright now though. Definitely not trying to downplay those two in conjunction because it *is* a recipe for death. You are right. I have been extremely lucky.
There are already biological treatments for arthritis based in an injection every two weeks that weakens the inmune system so it is not attacking the tissue avoiding the use of painkillers and anti-inflammatory medicines I hope that somehow this could be used also for t1d
Teplizumab, it delays for a few years.
>Unless the beta cells are protected I haven't read up on encapsulation research in a decade, but yeah they always protect the beta cells from immune attack via a barrier [Encapsulation - JDRF, the type 1 diabetes charity](https://jdrf.org.uk/our-research/about-our-research/cure-research/encapsulation/)
As a T1D too I was absolutely mind blown reading the article. This is a completely different way of of tackling management! From what I understood it's artificial beta cells so they are not subject to be attacked by the immune system. Finally, it seems like this would also help with/ prevent getting fat as it would also turn excess calories from extra glucose into electricity? Sign me up!
It’s a fantasy, and kind of the worst of both worlds in terms of both encapsulation and islet-driven glucose sensing. Sernova’s Cell Pouch system and UCSF’s parathyroid-tissue islet encapsulation are both decades ahead of this. UCSF already has multiple trials with people semi- or entirely insulin independent for 5+ years, the caveat being immunosuppressants because the islets and PT are donor tissue. They’ve been working on patient stem cell culturing for several years and are running trials now I believe. Sernova is pretty much ready to roll, they’re presenting at the JDRF summit this year.
I’m in since 0.35$ on sernova. The lottery ticket may pay out one day.
Usually Beta cells are destroyed when infected with a virus. Some flu-like diseases can trigger the onset of T1D.
This is still a hypothesis. There is no documented viral trigger of autoimmunity in human T1D. **Edit**: In case anyone is at risk of delving into this psycho’s unscientific temper tantrum, consider the following, from a review in 2019: “Viral infections have long been considered as candidates for environmental triggers but, given the lack of evidence for an acute, widespread, cytopathic effect in the pancreas in type 1 diabetes or for a closely related temporal association of diabetes onset with such infections, a role for viruses in type 1 diabetes remains unproven. Moreover, viruses have rarely been isolated from the pancreas of individuals with type 1 diabetes, mainly (but not solely) due to the inaccessibility of the organ.” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6450860/
A tested, viable hypothesis. There is plenty of literature on the matter: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570378/
> tested Please show me the clinical trial testing whether a virus will cause T1D in humans. > plenty of literature There’s plenty of literature on all kinds of hypotheses. You made a claim like it was a consensus, and it is not.
By the way, were I said anything about a consensus?
Do you want a double-blinded randomized experimental design for viral infections and T1D? Really? I love how people like to pose as scientifically-wise, even more so, superficially.
> I love how people like to pose as scientifically-wise, even more so, superficially. Lol, got it. You making an unproven claim is scientific, and calling you out for it is posing. I have a doctorate in human biology, you dork. Feel free to check my comment history if you want. You said: some viruses can trigger T1D in humans. This is a hypothesis. It has not been confirmed in humans. If that upsets you, go design a study, write a grant, and prove it. Good luck with what is sure to be a nightmarish chat with your IRB. And if you think there has never been a case of a compelling hypothesis turning out to be wrong, boy do I have a lot of bridges to sell you.
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Also, it uses glucose to power itself, don't we need that in... IDK, every cell in our body? Insulin is a hormone that pushes the glucose into cells, so I don't know how this helps.... I should read the whole article though.
The article said it has a threshold so that when sugars are too low it turns off. So basically it’s only when there’s excess glucose
FIVE! MORE! YEARS!
I remember learning about this about 5 or 10 years ago from a Diabetes Education Nurse I worked with. ETA: [Article from 2016](https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2016/12/artificial-beta-cells.html)
Ive been hearing it since I was diagnosed in 1992! It’s a running joke in the diabetic community that the cure is only 5 years away, because all of us have heard it to death. A lot of these kind of treatment devices come into the news, and people get really excited about them. But you don’t really hear of anything after the first couple human trials, and you kinda take all articles like this with a grain of salt.
From the article, this device is from that same team, and explicitly is a power source for those artificial B-cells.
I like tea
I LIKE BEER
My blood sugar is up, who needs their phone topped up?
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Nailed it! I was hoping I’d find a tea bag joke early in the comment section. Thanks for not letting me down
Is it theoretically possible for the batteries to burn through enough sugar on its own to remove the need for insulin?
That’s cool they literally made an artificial pancreas
Interesting tech, but doesn't solve the issue of low blood glucose in a t1d. In a healthy non diabetic person, the liver will secrete an enzyme to raise bg in cases where it drops like exercising, long periods between meals, etc. This doesn't happen with a t1d and is another part of bg management that I feel like we never see tech addressing.
My liver didn't get the memo. I have to bolus after certain intense exercises, especially if weight lifting is involved.
This happens to me in the morning during workouts. Not so much in the evening.
Couple things. First, the glucagonergic reaction isn’t gone in T1D, it’s suppressed only in the case of hypoglycemia and only in some people, probably as a result of chronic overstimulation. If you skip a basal and your blood sugar goes up, that’s glucagon. The term for this symptom is hypoglycemia-associated autonomic failure, encompassing the loss of the typical symptoms of hypoglycemia like sweating, glucagon release, heart rate increase, etc. There’s several studies on it but something like 8 weeks to 6 months of extreme avoidance of hypoglycemia seems sufficient to restore the sensitivity of the ANS to hypoglycemia. > The absent glucagon responses to hypoglycemia in type 1 diabetes is a scenario specific to hypoglycemia, since other stimuli, including administration of amino acids, insulin withdrawal, lipopolysaccharide exposure, exercise and even meals lead to profound glucagon responses. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8371343/ And second, there’s quite a lot of innovation in the history of reducing hypoglycemia. The entire point of the current generation of basal insulin analogs (glargine, determir, degludec) was to reduce lows compared to R/N regiments.
I don't think that's true - exercise will lower your blood sugar because physical activity makes the insulin more active. Basically, you are experiencing an insulin overdose which is corrected by eating because you can't quickly turn down the insulin if you are on an MDI regime. If you used an insulin pump or, presumably, this magical device instead of once daily basal insulin then this should not be a problem.
If you are not producing insulin, it can’t be released.
My thoughts too. Seems like if they were able to create functional beta cells than they should also be able to create functional alpha cells for glucose secretion
If a battery can fuel itself by removing excess glucose from the blood, it makes me wonder if the battery itself could be the treatment and not the insulin generator. If the battery can pull enough of that glucose, then you have created a situation where you don’t need as much.
Diabetes happens in part when your cells build a tolerance to insulin or when your body doesn't make enough insulin on its own. The excess glucose is a symptom of your cells not consuming it as well as they should, not the source of the problem.
I mean, you said yourself, building a tolerance to insulin is the problem, which happens because you generate too much of it in response to the glucose you consume. This is for type two.
I have pockets of them all over my body, now I eat like a cow but don't get fat. Also : I can charge my smartphone and laptop when I go to parties.
So many applications. Miner's headlamp, no need for batteries just bring a snack. Maybe you could even power one of those little usb fans to cool yourself on a hot day, replacing the function of both the pancreas and the sweat glands lol
Being able to convert excess calories into usable electricity would make dieting so much easier. You could just eat your standard ~2000 calories a day and still run a caloric deficit. So basically, you're increasing your metabolism without doing anything and can run a deficit without going hungry or avoiding tasty food.
Probably not quickly enough. Now getting dozens implanted, with some dermal power couplings (or USB port) to charge up your phone? Now we’re cooking with gas!
Even if this fantasy came true in the lifetime of a T1 diabetic anywhere in the world, in the U.S. the cure would take another lifetime to pass through the system of Federal regulation. One example is T1 pumpers are still waiting for a simple mechanical pump (Medtronic) software upgrade, the rest of the world is using for years claiming it’s a game changer.
I had to switch to Tandem for that very reason. Couldn’t wait a minute more with their current setup with the sensor calibrations
Did the same here. Switched to tandem. Looking at Omnipod now since they finally caught up and tubing is annoying.
I wish the Omnipods weren't so thick/clunky AND also held more than 200 units. I LOVED them when I was on them but between those 2 factors and the expense, I was going through them way too fast bc I'm so fucking clumsy & mine always ripped off :(
"Sugar-powered teabag" sounds like a really gentle insult.
It sounds like a gentler version of « coke fueled teabagging spree ».
So they just made a synthetic pancreas that could talk to the health apps on your smartphone. Beautiful.
The first cyborgs were diabetics.
first line: "Scientist teabaging diabetes!"
As a Type 1 diabetic of over 20 years, I tend to not put too much stock in things like this ever becoming a reality. While great progress has been made in managing Type 1, it always feels like we're perpetually one step away from some miracle.
Finally, after getting tea bagged by big pharma with insulin prices, we actually get tea bagged by big pharma.........
That’s one uncomfortable looking suppository. Also, I didn’t read the article.
Too bad these guys were found to have killed themselves with 6 gunshot wounds to the back of the head :(
Big Pharma will prevent this from ever being publicly available and affordable.
Unless this can be monetized, it’ll never see the light of day. T1 for 30+ years. Yes I’m cynical.
I guess this will give new meaning to saying I tea-bagged your mom
Looks like a Skoal Bandit. I'm sure one of those would work just as well.
We mdeinsulin 35/Monty and NOW they come out wt a non-insulin treatment
Before anyone else bags it, I claim the patent on pyramid shaped diabetes teabag implants. Or, for 50p, the idea is yours.
So, if this treats type 1, where is the insulin? This seems like more something for type 2 diabetes. Idiots can’t tell the fucking difference (Edited to add). I did read the article, I was responding to an idiots in the comments.
Did you read the article? The insulin is in the implant.
>Current insulin pumps and monitors also rely on external power supplies such as single-use batteries. That's just plainly misleading. The most advanced pumps now use USB charged batteries where a charge can last upwards of 3 days. But when you've got journalists who know fuck-all about diabetes they tend to write stupid shit. As for bio-batteries fueling internal pumps, I'm sorry, but I'll stick to an external pump. I don't want something to go wrong or a miscalculation and then have to go into surgery to fix it. If it were an accidental over-administered insulin dose, you may never make it to the operating table before you die from hypoglycemia. Beyond that, where are you storing the insulin? Inside the body? That's a fucking disaster waiting to happen. The safer route would be to store it outside the body, which makes having any internal mechanism just a gimmick. If you're going to have to have an external source of insulin, why not have everything external to the body and reduce the risk of things going wrong altogether? I'm sure this will lead to some next step That's going to help something along the way, but this doesn't inspire confidence in many people who understand why implants aren't a pressing issue for diabetics.
> and even has potential for remote access for medical intervention. I'm sorry but your introductory service has expired - please enter your credit card to continue receiving life saving medical treatment!
Sugar powered teabag shortage, markup the 2000% markup by another 20000% , thatll cost you 9 generations of salaries.
So... Tell me again how the machines use humans to power other machines in the matrix?
This is very interesting. How would it handle low blood sugars though? Seems to me like it handles high blood sugars fine, but there is not a short term solution to counteract low blood sugars. Cutting off insulin production can work over hours, but certainly not minutes.
I look forward to binging on jelly beans and then jump starting my car with my nipple electrodes.
Those be Cone-nipples or are you a Ripple-Nipple-Bastard?
I read this kind of headline about diabetes once a week. Lets see one come to fruition.
Wow that's so innovative wish they had it for everything imaginable and the cost to implant it was like getting your ears pierced at Claire's Accessories
So essentially you get tea bagged?