High Blood Sugar Levels

ADA: Insulin Pump Suspend Feature Halts Hypoglycemia

SAN DIEGO -- Insulin pumps that automatically shut down when blood glucose hits a certain low level decrease the amount of time pediatric patients spend in hypoglycemia, researchers said here.

Sensor-augmented pump therapy with a low glucose suspend mechanism, which shuts the device off when blood sugar levels dip below 70 mg/dL, halved the time patients were hypoglycemic, Thomas Danne, MD, of Hanover Medical School in Germany, and colleagues reported at a scientific session at the American Diabetes Association meeting here.

"It does work, and it significantly reduces rates of hypoglycemia," Danne said, adding that he believes the technology "is ready for prime-time."

Low glucose suspend technology sounds an alarm when patients appear to be descending into low blood sugar. Patients can respond and turn the alarm off; if they don't, the pump will shut down for two hours, Danne explained, then resume infusion for another four hours.

In some cases, after or during that time, patients may have another two-hour cycle of suspension, Danne said.

Low glucose suspend is an early incarnation of the artificial pancreas, according to Chip Zimliki, PhD, chair of the FDA's critical path initiative on the closed-loop device. It's used with sensor-augmented pump therapy, which lacks a control algorithm -- the hallmark of the artificial pancreas system -- that automatically deploys or withholds insulin on an as-needed basis.

Thus, the patient still controls the insulin dose. Still, having an automatic shut off could potentially be incorporated into a closed-loop system.

The FDA recently released a draft guidance on low glucose suspend technology, which will be followed up by a guidance on two other incarnations of the artificial pancreas: control-to-range and control-to-target, Zimliki said.

The goal is to establish unified targets for bringing these devices to market faster, he said.

For their study, Danne and colleagues enrolled 24 patients with type 1 diabetes, whose median age was 10.8 years. Patients were given two weeks of pump training, followed by five weeks of use of the pump with the low glucose suspend function turned on.

Danne said there were more alerts during the day than during the night (76% versus 24%), but there were more shutdowns overnight (84% versus 16%) and that's because patients turn off the devices when the alarm sounds and manage their condition.

Does Type 2 diabetes mean you have high or low blood sugar?

Im a nursing student and im sort of confused. My teacher gave us a paper titled “HYPOglycemic drugs Indicated for Type 2 diabetes”

One of the drugs listed is Glucophage.

For glucophage it says it decrease glucose production in the liver, but wouldn’t you want that if you were a HYPERglycemic and not Hypoglycemic?

Best answer:

Answer by Debra B

Type II diabetes means that your body is not sensitive enough to the insulin it produces causing your glucose levels to rise.

Metformin or Glucophage is indicated for hyperglycemic patients. By decreasing the glucose manufactured by the liver, there are lower levels of glucose that the circulating insulin has to contend with.

Your Nursing instructor probably made a typographical error and meant HYPERglycemia. This publication provides the Author's opinions and neither the Publisher nor the author intends to render legal, accounting, financial, business or other professional advice with this publication. With regards to licensing of a business enterprise, any legal accounting or tax matters. Author and publisher is an Affiliate of the company offering the services and are remunerated by advertiser. Author and publisher strongly suggest that the reader seek the services of appropriate licensed business, financial and or legal professionals before proceeding with any actions and comply with the local, state and federal licensing and guideline requirements which the reader resides or conducts business.

JAMA., The Journal of the American Medical Association

Archives of internal medicine

Menopause with Science and Soul, A Guidebook for Navigating the Journey

Blood glucose level regulation using higher order sliding mode techniques

Time