According to recent research and investigations, there is a body of new treatments that could help substantially the life quality of the patients who suffer from both diabetes Type 1 and 2.
Kimberly Miller, a nurse and diabetes educator at CHI Memorial’s Diabetes and Nutrition Center, have warned about how both obesity and diabetes percentage among Americans is rising, especially, in his hometown Tennesse.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released recent data concerning diabetes in the United States, as 9 percent of Americans suffer from the disease. In the case of Tennesse, the number of affected people goes up to 15 percent, as Tennesseans also have an above average percentage of obesity.
Diabetes: A chronic disease hard to fight
The most typical case of diabetes is Type 2, as if it is not treated it can cause eye, kidney, and heart problems, or even death. This disease is produced by the body being incapable of generating the right amounts of insulin or if the body starts being resistant to it. This hormone is the one in charge of break down all the sugars that are present in foods for them to supply cells with the necessary amount of energy.
According to the particular stage of the disease, there are several ways of attacking it. If it’s at an early stage, the patient could fight the illness by doing some extra exercise or making a substantial change in the diet regime.
However, in advance stages of the disease, or the more serious types of diabetes, where the body stops producing insulin altogether or becomes full-resistant to it, a more aggressive approach is needed.
The conventional method that patients use to combat this disease is the injection of insulin before every meal and at bedtime. For this injection, the patient must know their blood sugar levels to determine the amount of insulin needed by inserting a blood sample into a specialized device.
This process is known for being painful and awkward. However, developers are working on new devices that could make diabetes treatment easier for patients.
Medtronic is developing an innovative device
Currently, in the market, two devices are trying to make everything less difficult for diabetes patients. One of them consists of a glucose monitor that can register the blood sugar levels changes in a patient. The other one is an insulin pump that could provide the patient with standard amounts of insulin over the day, in equal amounts.
“The devices have been around for some time, but they used to be very inaccurate and difficult to use. Now they have become accurate enough that people are allowed to make medical decisions based on their numbers,” said Dr. Ashley Shoemaker, a Vanderbilt University Medical Center professor, while explaining how the glucose monitor works.
Medtronic, a Dublin-Minnesota-based medical device company, is going to release its MiniMed 670G in March of this year. This product is offering patients the possibility of continuously registering their blood sugar levels as well as the providing of insulin through a pump all in the same device.
“I don’t think we’re that close to a cure or anything that’s going to completely take the patient out of the loop,” said Dr. Shoemaker. “As the technology continues to advance, we are hopeful that the human factor will become less and less burdensome.”
Source: The News Tribune