iLet Bihormonal Bionic Pancreas Clinical Trial Begins (YIPPPEEEE!) reported by Ross Wollen for ASweetLife.org, June 2019. 

Massachusetts startup Beta Bionics and Danish biotech firm Zealand Pharma have announced the beginning of a clinical trial investigating the home-use of their iLet (get it?) experimental bionic pancreas system. What sets the iLet apart from other artificial pancreas concepts is the use of a second hormone in conjunction with insulin. That second hormone is dasiglucagon, a unique stable liquid glucagon analogue developed by Zealand.

Beta Bionics also promises that the system harnesses “lifelo  ng machine learning and artificial intelligence” to deliver a fully autonomous system – no carb counting or pre-bolusing necessary.

What does this really mean?  The current closed loop systems only offer one hormone, insulin … plus an algorithm that increases or decreases the steady flow of insulin.  Kind of like trying to drive a car with only a gas pedal.  You can go forward by pressing on the gas pedal … or slow it down by taking your foot off the gas pedal.  But there is no brake.

The dual hormone closed loop system more closely mimics the way a non-diabetic pancreas works.  You can add or subtract insulin delivery OR increase glucose delivery … based on an algorithm that learns how your body needs to be monitored.  So … a car with both a gas pedal AND a brake pedal.  Brilliant!

Read more:

• iLet Bihormonal Bionic Pancreas Clinical Trial Begins
• Beta Bionics, Insulet seek shake-up of insulin delivery market at ADA

Insulet (PODD) Hits 52-Week High on Solid Growth Prospects was reported by Zacks Equity Research for Finance.Yahoo.com, 13 June 2019.

On June 12, shares of Insulet Corporation PODD scaled a new 52-week high of $116.41, closing the session a tad bit lower at $115.85. The upside followed after impressive first-quarter 2019 earnings results. In the past year, Insulet stock has surged 13.7% compared with the S&P 500 index’s rise of 2.5%. The return is also higher than the broader industry’s rise of 5.5%.Considering the above factor, one may expect the leading developer of end-to-end automation solutions for the medication-use process, to scale new highs in the upcoming quarters. Further, the company delivered average positive earnings surprise of 135.9% in the trailing four quarters.

Factors Driving the Stock include:

• • Progress of U.S. Manufacturing Facility: 
  • Omnipod’s market expansion continues
  • Omnipod Horizon, a New Focus

Read more: Insulet (PODD) Hits 52-Week High on Solid Growth Prospects

How common is undiagnosed coronary artery disease in adult patients with long term type 1 diabetes?  was published by MedVizor.com, 22 June 2019.  Worth paying some attention.

Researchers from Oslo University Hospital in Oslo, Norway concluded that undiagnosed coronary artery disease (UCAD) was very common in patients with long-term type 1 diabetes and that high cholesterol and HbA1c were associated with coronary artery disease (CAD).

Long-term high blood glucose damages blood vessels to the heart (coronary arteries) causing CAD. Unfortunately, patients with T1D do not always show symptoms of CAD. This makes it hard to identify them to prevent heart attacks and death. Many patients with T1D also have high cholesterol levels. This also leads to CAD.

Read more:

• How common is undiagnosed coronary artery disease in adult patients with long term type 1 diabetes?
• The Dialong study

Is It Bad to Sleep Near Your Smartphone? was written by Markham Heid for The Nuance/Elemental/Medium, 3 January 2019. Experts disagree over just how worried you should be about smartphone health risks.  This becomes an interesting topic, as many of us T1d folks use our smartphones for BG monitoring and insulin delivery.  Indeed, most of the new closed loop systems will depend on smartphone technology.  So … is it ok to sleep near your phone?

If you’re like the average American, you probably sleep with your smartphone within arm’s reach. A 2015 Bank of America report found that 71 percent of people sleep with or near their phones — and that includes the 13 percent who said they slept with their phones in their beds.  I have NO idea what the %age of T1s and parents of T1s sleep with their smartphones!

Maybe you’ve wondered whether keeping your phone nearby is a bad idea — perhaps it’s zapping your brain with radio waves or otherwise screwing with your health. It would be comforting if researchers firmly and finally quashed any notions that our devices can cause negative health effects. No such luck.

This past November, the U.S. government’s National Toxicology Program wrapped up a 10-year, $30 million study on the health effects of cellphone radiation exposure. In essence, the government scientists blasted rats with different levels of radiofrequency radiation (RFR) for varying lengths of time and then watched to see what would happen.

“Our studies showed that radiofrequency radiation at the frequencies and modulations used in cellular telecommunications and under the exposure conditions we used can produce adverse biological effects,” says John Bucher, one of the study’s authors and a senior scientist with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Specifically, Bucher’s study found “clear evidence” of tumors in the hearts of male rats exposed to RFR, as well as “some evidence” of tumors in the brains and adrenal glands of male rats. They found “equivocal” evidence of adverse effects in female rats, meaning it wasn’t clear if the tumors that turned up were caused by RFR exposure.

“If there is a risk, I think it’s minimal,” says Larry Junck, MD, a neuro-oncologist and professor of neurology at the University of Michigan. “We haven’t seen an increase in brain tumors since mobile phone use has become widespread.” Moreover, Junck says the research showing any mechanistic link between cellphone radiation and brain tumors is inconsistent and “methodologically flawed.”

Others look at the existing research with great concern. “I think there’s compelling evidence that electromagnetic radiation exposure is indeed harmful,” says Joel Moskowitz, director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He reels off the findings of a dozen recent studies, including a 2017 review from China that found heavy mobile phone users were at significantly increased risk of glioma — a type of malignant tumor in the brain and spinal cord.

Moskowitz says tumor risks don’t top his list of concerns, because a sleeper’s phone isn’t steadily transmitting the way it does during a call. But he says it’s likely that low-level nighttime radiation exposures could disrupt sleep and cause other neurological effects. He points to a small 2016 study from Germany that found exposing men to cellphone radiation seemed to change the structure of their sleep — increasing or decreasing REM and other sleep parameters — though the health ramifications of these shifts aren’t clear.

The obvious advice is to keep your phone out of the bedroom. Or, if you use it as an alarm clock, you could switch it into airplane mode, which stops it from sending or receiving signals, Moskowitz says. He also repeats the longstanding advice to use a wired hands-free device when making calls and to keep your phone away from your body.

Read more: Is It Bad to Sleep Near Your Smartphone?

Millions of Americans take vitamin D. Most should just stop, according to a report by Julia Belluz for Vox.com, 19 June 2019.  Outside of rare cases, rigorous studies of the supplement don’t find any health benefit. 

Americans love a quick health fix in pill form: something to protect against illness, with minimal effort. For years, one of the go-to supplements has been vitamin D, thought to do everything from preventing cancer to strengthening bones.

Some bad news: Yet another big study adds to the pile of evidence that it’s useless for most people.

The new research, published on June 19 in JAMA Cardiology, combined the results of 21 randomized clinical trials to look at whether vitamin D supplementation was associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular events, such as heart attacks or strokes.

The findings — based on studies involving 83,000 patients — were pretty bleak: Vitamin D supplementation was not associated with any cardiovascular benefit.

Read more: Millions of Americans take vitamin D. Most should just stop.

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