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Re:A DIY ‘bionic pancreas’ is changing diabetes care – what'... by iaresee on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @11:47AM (#37323920)
> Is the problem that there is no hardware for dual hormone pumps?

All the well-tested pumps (Tandem, Omnipod, Medtronic) are insulin-delivery only.

Re:A DIY ‘bionic pancreas’ is changing diabetes care – what'... by haldujai on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @12:36PM (#37324668)
It's not because of pump issues but more glucagon stability and secondarily whether bihormonal is clinically advantageous.

Tandem is working on a dual chambered pump.

https://diatribe.org/jdrf-and-tandem-diabetes-care-announce-...

Re:A DIY ‘bionic pancreas’ is changing diabetes care – what'... by iaresee on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @06:29PM (#37329999)
Yea, but "working on" is a bit different than "readily available and trusted to function well". Everything is harder with two delivery pumps.
Re:A DIY ‘bionic pancreas’ is changing diabetes care – what'... by haldujai on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @07:28PM (#37330467)
The pump isn't the hard part.
Re:A DIY ‘bionic pancreas’ is changing diabetes care – what'... by nahsra on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @11:54AM (#37324017)
Yes, but the "patch pumps" like the Omnipod are small enough you think patients might tolerate 2 of them? Maybe they've already asked, and people wouldn't tolerate it.
Re:A DIY ‘bionic pancreas’ is changing diabetes care – what'... by iaresee on Wednesday August 30, 2023 @06:39PM (#37330085)
Possibly. But it's more than that. You have site issues, even with one pump, that you need to navigate. There are only so many viable places on a body to attach a cannula for good absorptoin and, while small, these things aren't _tiny_ (especially the Omnipods where the site holds the cannula, pump and reservoir).

It'll be a while before we see highly reliable and well-tested dual-reservoir systems is my bet.

The complexities of balancing insulin and glucagon in a two-pump system are also high. And the feedback loop from sensors that detect BGL aren't super fast. My kid's Dexcom works on a 5 minute sample loop now. So you can't make decisions fast and when you do, you can't course correct a bad decision quickly.

I love that people are working on this stuff. The folks at https://wearenotwaiting.net/ are amazing and we even use NightScout here, but the fragility of the systems are stark and it'll be a ways to go before it's not just the brave pioneers pushing these frontiers for T1Ds.