Does DIY still have a place in diabetes care?
When Dana Lewis built her first artificial pancreas in 2014, she — and millions of other people with type 1 diabetes — didn’t have another option. Today, they have alternatives.
When Dana Lewis built her first artificial pancreas in 2014, she — and millions of other people with type 1 diabetes — didn’t have another option. Back then, diabetes device manufacturers hadn’t closed the loop between the blood glucose sensors that help determine a person’s next insulin dose and the pumps that deliver it. So she took the reins, hacking her existing devices to build a DIY system that could automate her insulin doses.
Since then, the community of DIYers with type 1 diabetes has grown to the thousands. But today, they have alternatives: Device manufacturers have caught up with their own, FDA-cleared closed-loop systems, and automated insulin delivery is becoming more common. In a world with these commercial options, does the DIY artificial pancreas still have a place?
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