More than 100,000 people with type 1 diabetes in England will be offered an “artificial pancreas”, in a revolutionary new treatment for managing the condition.
The so-called closed-loop system uses an algorithm to determine the amount of insulin that should be administered to the user and reads blood sugar levels to keep them steady. For thousands of people in the UK, living with diabetes means regular finger-pricking, insulin injections and blood monitoring. But those time-consuming and sometimes stressful processes would become automated by the new treatment, which is being called a “holy grail” for those with diabetes.
Hannah Moore hears from those living with diabetes, such as Jade Byrne and nine-year-old Eddie Haigh, with his father Ian Haigh. She also hears from Dr Charlotte Boughton, who helped conduct the research trials, and the NHS diabetes specialist Prof Partha Kar.
Photograph: Hollandse Hoogte/REX/Shutterstock
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