I love your enthusiasm! This thread is turning me into the queen of questions- sorry if it seems as if I’m sinking your ‘boat’!
where is the insulin/glucagon coming from? Is this device some sort of shield that protects beta cells or a device that produces hormones on its own? Where does it get the energy and resources to produce the hormones?
If the device doesn’t have to read your BG (yay!), how the device know how much insulin/glucagon to release? As we all know, you need more/less insulin and glucagon depending on an infinite list of variables.
Great questions! The device would completely hopefully take the role of a pancreas, meaning it would work the same way way as one would, it would depend on how much food you eat and/or how little food you eat! A pancreas produces insulin on its own, and I want this device to be able to do that too, do note however, having a cgm shortly after a successful transplant would be recommended for safety, no tech is perfect and don’t expect this to be either, just close enough to it! The device would be made of a material that would not be human tissue, rather something close enough to it that the human detects no difference, but the antibodies cannot kill it, effectively the idea is to create a pancreas in a new casing almost, we can’t imitate islet cells unfortunately, other than a cgm in which I want to remove the need for with this. One possibility is to have it in the shape of a pancreas, with islet cells and beta cells within it, it would work as a shield against antibodies, a temporary solution until we can get a permanent, easy, and most importantly effective solution, which if we continue on the path we’re on, I believe can be made shortly after
I was surfing the web recently and saw some articles about smart insulins (not smart insulin pens - smart insulins) that are under development. Would your device work in conjunction with that?
I love your excitement and inventiveness!!
That would be precisely what this pancreas would need! That would eliminate the biggest problem with the pancreas! This would make it to were the islet cells could Ben possibly be eliminated from the procedure, as technology keeps enhancing the better for us, with this breakthrough I believe this could become the permanent solution me and many others have not lost hope for!
@REESEScups07 My most recent reading on T1 is that the pancreas actually uses a combination of 6 hormones to control BG, insulin and glucagon are two, amylin I think another, don’t recall the other three. While your idea is a start, you may need to increase the hormones controlled by four. I tried to re-find the article, but no joy on a short search…
That’s a really interesting article! I knew that our islets produced more than insulin but I didn’t know the specifics.
So the next question would be which hormones are still being produced by the pancreas and how much of those hormones are needed?
If the pancreas is still producing 2/6 hormones, could you potentially introduce a device that makes the other four without removing the pancreas?
You have this correct, Lise @6yGodsGr. The other cells that I mentioned at the top of this Topic serve as “communicators”; such as to the liver to release stored glucagon - and other purposes.
Of note, in transplant pancreas surgery, just like in kidney transplant, a person’s born-with pancreas remains in place.
I didn’t know they left the original organs in place, I just assumed kidney/pancreatic transplants were like heart transplants and the original organ was removed. Thanks for the correction! I learn something new every time I visit this forum.
Another thing, Landen @REESEScups07, to take into account is to see if it would be possible to modify this treatment, if possible, to work for people with MODY or T1D’s without detectable antibodies (like me :p). Their bodies may not make insulin but might still make other hormones. Or in some cases of MODY, their bodies don’t make other hormones that allow the insulin to do it’s job.
I am also like @wadawabbit in that I don’t want to trust my life to machines. That’s the main reason I have not gotten on a pump. I worry that it could “gush out” insulin in case of a malfunction. I know that will never happen blah blah blah
To clarify, I am on a pump, and have used one since the mid-90s🤔, starting with Minimed’s 504.
I admit my parents and I did have concerns about me getting too much insulin “runaway” pump or not - making me more subject to “insulin reactions,” as they were called at the time. I researched pumps, studied the safety features, and decided to make the change based on my own risk assessment; good glycemic awareness at the time and comfort of having fingersticks to let me know where I was (I didn’t qualify for a CGM until sometime later); and the ability to disconnect if the pump over-delivered - or go back on shots if it failed.
Everyone needs to do their own risk assessment and decide what they are comfortable with. Shots do work better for some people, and give them more peace of mind. If you ever reach the point where you can no longer keep good control on shots, I hope you might consider a pump.
That’s the wonderful thing is that depending on how research goes for MODY, then I’m positive I could adjust the initial formula and schematics to create an even cheaper pancreas to accommodate those with MODY! Depending on the hormones still produced, and like all meds talk to your doctor, endo, surgeon, etc. all before considering this treatment option, this is a long time away, either way, the way this would work is the exact same way, but not producing nor transmitting what you don’t need, I’m sure I could get it done for MODY faster too, as long as it’s something I can do of course, I’m any case both will have to go through decades of testing and improvement, in any case, it can’t take place of your pancreas, but the only people it would not work for is Type 2 diabetics, this due to the cause being different, and I hate to say this but it being far less life threatening than T1 (or MODY and other variants of the disease) means that the risk is not one I am willing to take on a moral basis, other than that this will be revolutionary! And possibly even a cheap cure to this condition!
This is perfect! Thank you for sharing this with me @6yGodsGr Lise, that’s honestly something that could do even more wonders in this! Using that therapy with the ideas I’m already tossing around in my mind, slowly but surely I’m getting a clearer and clearer image in my head, even if it may be years away, I am super excited to get even closer to a cure to this!