Sugar-Powered Implant Successfully Manages Type 1 Diabetes 50
Researchers have developed a novel fuel cell implant for type 1 diabetes that can successfully produce and release insulin when triggered. New Atlas reports: The fuel cell itself, which resembles a teabag that's slightly larger than a fingernail, is covered in a nonwoven fabric and coated with alginate, an algae-derived product used widely in biomedicine because of its high degree of biocompatibility. When implanted under the skin, the cell's alginate soaks up body fluid, allowing glucose to permeate the surface and flow into the power center. Inside the cell, the team developed a copper-based nanoparticle anode that splits glucose into gluconic acid and a proton to generate an electric current. "Many people, especially in the Western industrialized nations, consume more carbohydrates than they need in everyday life," [Martin Fussenegger from the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich] said. "This gave us the idea of using this excess metabolic energy to produce electricity to power biomedical devices.
The fuel cell was then coupled with an insulin capsule featuring the team's beta cells, which could be triggered to secrete insulin via electric current from the implant. Overall, the two components provide a self-regulating circuit. When the fuel cell powered by glucose senses excess blood sugar, it powers up. This then stimulates the beta cells to produce and secrete insulin. As blood sugar levels dip, it trips a threshold sensor in the fuel cell, so it powers down, in turn stopping the insulin production and release. This self-sustained circuit could also produce enough power to communicate with a device such as a smartphone, which allows for monitoring and adjusting, and even has potential for remote access for medical intervention. The study was published in the journal Advanced Materials.
The fuel cell was then coupled with an insulin capsule featuring the team's beta cells, which could be triggered to secrete insulin via electric current from the implant. Overall, the two components provide a self-regulating circuit. When the fuel cell powered by glucose senses excess blood sugar, it powers up. This then stimulates the beta cells to produce and secrete insulin. As blood sugar levels dip, it trips a threshold sensor in the fuel cell, so it powers down, in turn stopping the insulin production and release. This self-sustained circuit could also produce enough power to communicate with a device such as a smartphone, which allows for monitoring and adjusting, and even has potential for remote access for medical intervention. The study was published in the journal Advanced Materials.
Re:Cheaper solution (Score:5, Informative)
How about not doing that in the first place?
The pancreas of people with Type 1 diabetes makes little or no insulin, so they need to take insulin to survive, regardless of how much/little they eat. People with Type 2 have more control via their diet.
Re: Cheaper solution (Score:2)
Agreed. However, have in mind that there are ten times more people with Type II.
Type I is a genetic lottery, type II is a serious socio-economic medical problem.
Re: Cheaper solution (Score:5, Informative)
Type 1 can also arise from complications with other diseases like pancreatitis, cysts, and certain viral infections and cancers; possibly other things that damage the pancreas or its ability to produce B cells.
Its also a lot harder to live with generally speaking because there is so very little you can do other than insulin pumps to control it and it usually comes with other endocrine problems. Which are definitely not fun things for young people and children to put up with.
While it may not have the societal impact a treatment for type 2 might, effective treatments for type 1 will improve the quality of life for a lot of people!
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Re: Cheaper solution (Score:2)
Type 2 is a serious socio-economic health problem and a genetic lottery. Some people with a very poor diet don't have it, some people with a relatively modest one (by modern standards) do.
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Sure, but as many problems as type II may cause, it won't kill you in the next few days if you can't get your hands on a needed medication.
Type II is spurred on by many things, some of them surprising. For example, the fat free processed food craze lead to foods loaded with sugar and salt to replace a significant carrier of flavor. Notably, by removing the fat, they also removed the strongest trigger for satiety so people eat more.
Re:Cheaper solution (Score:5, Funny)
Since we have so many obese people, we could use these blood-sugar fuel cells to generate electricity from the excess sugar in their blood. This would be easier if they were immobile, so we could store people in vats and feed their brains with sensory input for a virtual world. Of course, we will need good security to ensure that no one bypasses the sensory input and breaks out of the virtual existence into reality.
Re:Cheaper solution (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't need such a high-tech solution, we have one that's already well-tested. You put the obese people into living quarters, enclosed with walls and barbed wire, and have them perform useful work the traditional way. Tightly controlled food intake ensures they will drop weight.
Jokes aside, the first thing we need is to make obesity as unglamorous as possible. The concepts of "healthy at every size", "body positive" and so on need to go. Instead of "people oppressed for being different than the obsolete beauty standards say" they need to be considered plague bearers. People who promote obesity are no different than antivaxxers -- their propaganda makes people die to a widespread curable illness.
Obesity is addiction to food, and needs to be fought the same way we fight tobacco.
Re: Cheaper solution (Score:2)
It's already pretty damn unglamorous. Fat positivity is a fringe online phenomenon, I'm pretty certain it's an inevitable product of obesity trends (I.e. a coping strategy) and not a significant driver of obesity trends.
I'm of the opinion that we must look at economic solutions rather than that oh so satisfying individual moral condemnation. Not just taxing the unhealthy and subsidizing the healthy, but looking critically at the supply ch
Re:Cheaper solution (Score:5, Informative)
Obesity is addiction to food, and needs to be fought the same way we fight tobacco. ...
There are dozens of other reasons
E.g. completely unsuited food.
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make obesity as unglamorous as possible
Fat shaming hasn't really worked over the last 100 years, but give it another century and we're sure to see results.
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Folks with food addiction need to go cold turkey and just stop eating, like one does with booze and drugs.
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As always, it's not as simple as that. Some of the medicines used to control diabetes also cause weight gain.
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No, it's only food that can cause weight gain. All that medicines can do is: 1. making your body process food more or less efficiently (thus shifting the point of "enough"), or 2. affecting your sensation of hunger (ie, craving). It's simple physics.
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Obesity is addiction to food, and needs to be fought the same way we fight tobacco.
So tax food at 500% and use the proceeds to fund propaganda posters in schools instructing people to "just say no to food"? I mean, we're already halfway there with recent efforts to prevent schools from giving food to kids.
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Complete bullshit. If you want to get rid of obesity, come up with something that actually works for people to lose weight without feeling half dead all the time.
Shitting on people rarely accomplishes much good anywhere.
The whole "body positive" thing is just a big middle finger to the primary shitters. The more you shit, the louder it's going to get. If you want it to go away, your options are find the silver bullet or STFU.
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... and arguments like this are the reason we haven't gotten rid of nicotine addiction. Yes, having withdrawal symptoms from an addiction can make you feel bad; this doesn't make shedding the addiction any less urgent.
And like nicotine, there's a large industry involved in making ceasing overeating as hard as possible.
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Compare though, health outcome from consuming zero nicotine for 1 year vs. consuming zero food for 1 year. Are you starting to see the issue?
Ever seen someone who wants to 'cut down' on smoking successfully reduce it to 3 cigarettes a day for the long term?
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the first thing we need is to make obesity as unglamorous as possible. The concepts of "healthy at every size", "body positive" and so on need to go. Instead of "people oppressed for being different than the obsolete beauty standards say" they need to be considered plague bearers. People who promote obesity are no different than antivaxxers -- their propaganda makes people die to a widespread curable illness.
Obesity is addiction to food, and needs to be fought the same way we fight tobacco.
Look at the phrasing, "beauty standards", all that body positivity stuff is aimed solely at women for whom obesity already is as unglamorous as possible. Actual female beauty standards are unhealthy, hence all the women with anorexia and other eating disorders.
I severely doubt there are any women who choose to remain fat because of body positivity. Instead it simply makes them feel less bad about themselves.
The bigger issue is men, there's not nearly the same social stigma attached to overweight and obese m
Re: Cheaper solution (Score:2)
This is such a good idea that I am amazed nobody has thought of it before.
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This solution might work for Type 2 diabetes before it develops.
But I'm not sure about gestational diabetes.
And I know for sure it won't work for Type 1 (since it's an autoimmune disorder).
Re: Cheaper solution (Score:2)
My type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, triggered by a virus. It makes my white cells attack my pancreatic cells. My eating habits are not the cause, and even a strict diet would not improve my lack of insulin.
Re: Cheaper solution (Score:1)
Iâ(TM)d think⦠the researchers would rather you just say âoeThank youâ.
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Do you realize that making food addictive is a billions of dollars a year industry?
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That does not work for Type I diabetes, and for many instances of Type II as well. You should not form opinions based on limited knowledge.
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Easily said, but when carbs are the cheapest calories, and added to almost everything that has any preprocessing before reaching the grocery store, it can be difficult to avoid.
Generating power within the body (Score:2)
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Too early to tell. This device is however very low energy.
Not the first (Score:3)
There have been other things that "cured" type 1 diabetes, such as encapsulated porcine islet cells. They were cells from pig pancreas which were "encapsulated" to prevent an immune response. But I don't think this was ever mass produced.
only solves half the problem? (Score:3)
What's the point of having a self-powered device that dispenses from a fixed and limited supply container? Even if it can run a decade, how long will the insulin supply last?
This looks more of a "proof of concept" for a self-powered implant, which is a good thing, but that's not what the article title seems to suggest.
Re:only solves half the problem? (Score:4, Informative)
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I suppose that'd work as long as those cells aren't consumed in any way and keep up their population?
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They are consumed by something otherwise they would still be around.
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Even if the cells died and the device had to be replaced once / year with a minor surgery, this would still be an enormous quality of life improvement for the average Type-1 diabetic.
Matrix (Score:2)
I didn't realize that the Matrix was powered by sugar.
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I always figured the slop they ate on the ship was probably what was fed to the bodies in the capsules. Basically some nutritionally-complete "food" like Huel or Soylent.
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Tang with liquified pop-tarts.
I'm not saying I'm fat.. (Score:2)
Non-woven fabric? (Score:2)
So like knitted? Are our grandmothers responsible for wiping out type 1 diabetes?
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So like knitted? Are our grandmothers responsible for wiping out type 1 diabetes?
Knitted? Where did you get that from. It is felt. Felt is a non-woven fabric.
wharggglbllgbllll (Score:3)
I'd say something intelligent about this, but I'm currently shoving sugar in my face because I injected too much insulin this morning and have to deal with a low blood sugar episode.
Hopefully they solved that problem, because having an implant which produces too much insulin but can't be removed would suuuuuuuuuck...
...and probably kill you.
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The beauty of an implanted device that triggers directly off blood sugar levels is that it has faster detection and reaction to high sugar levels, and similarly faster detection and reaction to lowered sugar levels, so it should be less likely to give more insulin than is actually useful.
wow that seems like a hell of a lot of amazement (Score:1)
Not only is it converting available (excess/deleterious) blood sugar to power a (electronic) therapeutic device, but the "fuel consumption" itself is therapeutic.