Savvy Updates 9/8/26

In this week’s issue of The Savvy Diabetic: 

• • Type 1 diabetes cases projected to increase worldwide by 2049
  • Urge Your U.S. Representative to Cosponsor the INSULIN Act
  • MiniMed submits new patch pump for FDA clearance
  • Diabetes Tech Update: What Did You Miss This Summer?
  • Disabling a gen in pancreatic cells unlocks insulin-producing potential
  • Seen, Heard and Supported: Coping with the Emotional Burden of T1D
  • Diabetes Technology Improves T1D Care, Add Burdens for Patients
  • Beyond the Data: Digital Burnout & Diabetes with Dr. Molly Tannenbaum
  • AI Will Change Software .. & Change How We Build D Devices
  • Glucose, insulin sensitivity fluctuate during menstrual cycle in T1D
  • UofL receives $11.6 million for research in nutrition & metabolic health
  • Smart ring maker Oura files to go public, on AI-driven preventive health
  • ADA review of members’ expulsion denies group censored opinions

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News from T1Dto100

• • • Prepare for Open Enrollment with our 2027 Medicare Plan Guide!
    • Smart walker boosts walking efficiency & dynamic balance in older adults
    • The Diabetes Police Just Gave Me A Ticket, by Brad Slaight 

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Type 1 diabetes cases projected to increase worldwide by 2049 by the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, published by news-medical.net, 28 August 2026.

Read more: Type 1 diabetes cases projected to increase worldwide by 2049

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ADVOCACY ACTION ALERT: Urge Your U.S. Representative to Cosponsor the INSULIN Act

 

Affordability is a growing problem for many Americans. But for the T1D community, it is even more challenging when basic living expenses include insulin – something people with T1D cannot live without. Capping the out-of-pocket cost of insulin would make this financial burden easier to manage and ensure that no one is forced to attempt rationing, which can be deadly.

The INSULIN Act will:

• • Cap monthly out-of-pocket costs for insulin for those with group and individual market health plans
  • Eliminate prior authorization for insulin
  • Establish an insulin resource center and hotline for uninsured individuals to help them secure insulin.

I urge you to cosponsor the INSULIN Act so people who need insulin to live can afford it.  Thank you!

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MiniMed submits new patch pump for FDA clearance by Elise Reuter for edTechDive.co, 1 September 2026.

Following the debut of its smallest insulin pump, diabetes tech firm MiniMed is planning more device launches next year. The company, which spun out of Medtronic earlier this year, said Tuesday that it has filed a Food and Drug Administration submission for its first patch pump, with a planned launch next summer. CEO Que Dallara told investors on an earnings call that the company is preparing for a commercial launch of the patch pump, called MiniMed Fit. Currently, Insulet leads the U.S. market for insulin patch pumps, but competitors including MiniMed and Tandem Diabetes Care have been working on their own versions of the technology.

Dallara said that Fit would have a 300-unit insulin reservoir, larger than other devices on the market today, and would accommodate up to seven days of wear time. This could better support people with Type 2 diabetes, who may require more insulin and benefit from fewer device change-outs, the CEO said.

MiniMed also completed enrollment of a pivotal trial for a fully closed loop algorithm, which would calculate the amount of insulin a person needs throughout the day, even if they don’t announce meals or count carbohydrates. MiniMed also plans to launch the feature later next year. 

Finally, MiniMed is working on a new glucose sensor with a longer wear time. The company received an investigational device exemption that would allow it to start a pivotal trial this fall. MiniMed has not yet shared what features the sensor will have or how long of a wear time it is targeting. Its current sensor, Simplera Sync, has a six-day wear time, while competing devices have wear times ranging from 10 to 15 days.

Read more: MiniMed submits new patch pump for FDA clearance

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Diabetes Tech Update: What Did You Miss This Summer? by Dr. Inge von Boxelaer for Diabetotech.com, 4 September 2026.

What Stands Out?  Looking across all 20 systems, a few trends are becoming difficult to miss.

• • • • More interoperability. FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus and Dexcom G7 are increasingly connecting with multiple AID systems rather than one proprietary ecosystem.
      • More full closed-loop. CamAPS Liberty is already moving in this direction, while MiniMed Vivera, Tandem AIDANET and future Omnipod systems show where the industry is heading: less carbohydrate counting and less daily diabetes work.
      • More patch pumps. Mobi Tubeless, MiniMed Fit, Mint and myPatch are all in development.
      • And perhaps most strikingly: AI is moving into CGM apps. Dexcom, Abbott/Google and Sinocare are all moving from simply showing glucose data toward interpreting meals, predicting patterns and giving personalized recommendations.

Whether all of that will genuinely reduce diabetes burden — rather than just generate more notifications and advice — will be the interesting part.

Want to make sure you don’t miss it?  Subscribe to the Diabetotech email list to get the next diabetes technology update straight in your inbox.

 Type 1 and 2 diabetes are ultimately caused by a shortage of beta (β) cells, which are present in the pancreas and produce insulin to control blood sugar. Researchers from Harvard Medical School found that they can tweak a gene and turn a patient’s own pancreatic cells into insulin-producing cells.

The researchers set out to explore whether there was a fast, reliable way to transform pancreatic duct cells into insulin-producing beta-like cells. Instead of trying to multiply existing beta cells, a process humans carry out very slowly, they looked for a way to harness and edit biological processes already present in the cells.

In a survey, more than 500 adults with T1D provided free-text narratives about how diabetes technology — insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), and automated insulin delivery (AID) systems that integrate both — affected their daily lives. The results were published recently in JAMA Network Open.

Some concerns, including affordability and dealing with insurance companies, are fairly well recognized. Others, such as the physical and emotional consequences of device failures, travel and airport security challenges, and apprehension about the environmental impact of device waste, may be less likely to come up during routine clinical conversations.

Study author Estelle M. Everett, MD, an endocrinologist and health services researcher at the Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said. “I think the mental capacity and all it takes to manage the systems is underrecognized.”

Key Points

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AI Will Not Just Change Software. It Will Change How We Build Medical Devices in Diabetes Care by Derek Brandt, CEO of Diabetes Center Berne and published on LinkedIn.com, 26 August 2026.

For years, medical device development has followed a relatively predictable path: identify the clinical need, define the product, build prototypes, test, fail, redesign, document, verify, validate, industrialize, prepare the regulatory submission, and eventually launch. In reality, many of these steps are repeated several times, often with long feedback loops between engineering, quality, regulatory, clinical, and manufacturing. This makes device development expensive, resource-intensive, and slow.

AI has the potential to change this fundamentally. Not because it will magically design, validate, and approve a medical device on its own, but because it can dramatically compress the time between an idea, a question, a decision, and the next iteration. That matters because a large part of development cost is not created by the individual task itself, but by the waiting, rework, coordination, documentation, and late discovery of wrong assumptions.

The most important impact of AI may therefore be the acceleration of the development loop. During early product development, AI can help teams explore a much broader design space, compare technical approaches, structure user needs, challenge assumptions, analyze competitive solutions, and identify potential conflicts much earlier. Instead of spending weeks preparing and evaluating the next design iteration, teams may increasingly be able to assess several alternatives within days or even hours.

The consequence is not that engineers, regulatory experts, quality professionals, or clinicians become obsolete. Quite the opposite. Their leverage increases. A small, experienced team equipped with powerful AI tools may increasingly be able to perform work that previously required a much larger organization. The value of expertise remains, but the amount of output that can be generated from that expertise can increase significantly.

The key question is therefore no longer whether AI will become part of medical device development. The more important question is which companies will be willing to redesign the way they develop devices around it.

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Glucose, insulin sensitivity fluctuate during menstrual cycle in type 1 diabetes by Michael Monostra for Healio.com/endocrinology, 1 September 2026.

Glucose and insulin sensitivity vary during the menstrual cycle for women with type 1 diabetes, highlighting the need for automated insulin delivery systems that account for these variations, researchers reported.

“Insulin requirements, mean glucose and carbohydrate intake peak in the luteal phase, [and] time in range is lower,” Martina Rothenbühler, PhD, scientific program manager at Diabetes Center Berne in Switzerland, told Healio. “Modeled insulin sensitivity is lower in the midluteal phase vs. early follicular phase. There is substantial individual variability; changes in insulin sensitivity don’t look the same for everyone.”

Rothenbühler said healthcare professionals should discuss with patients how menstrual cycle phases may influence glucose during diabetes management. Additionally, she said, automated insulin delivery manufacturers should be aware of these potential effects.

Read more: Glucose, insulin sensitivity fluctuate during menstrual cycle in T1D

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UofL receives $11.6 million to amplify research in nutrition and metabolic health by Betty Coffman/media for University of Louisville and published by EurekaAlert.org, 26 August 2026.

Chronic health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, heart disease and metabolic liver disease have sharply increased in recent decades and are among the most urgent health challenges facing our society. These conditions often are driven by obesity, poor diet and lack of exercise.  The University of Louisville has received new federal funding to amplify research to address these challenges disproportionately affecting residents of Kentucky, which ranks 43^rd in health among U.S. states.

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences has awarded $11.6 million to UofL through a five-year Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) grant to increase research focused on nutrition and metabolic health. With this funding, UofL will launch the Nutrition and Metabolic Health Center (NMHC), where researchers will seek new understanding about how foods affect health, how the body processes food and how environmental exposures affect metabolism. With these discoveries, they will pursue new avenues to combat chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and liver dysfunction.

“Increasing our understanding of how nutrition and metabolism affect human health is essential to tackle the most pressing health challenges of our time,” said President Gerry Bradley. “In addition to the federal funds, the university has committed $7.25 million to this broad and ambitious center. This endeavor promises to cultivate a cohort of future research leaders whose work will advance health and wellbeing in Kentucky and beyond for generations to come.”

Read more:UofL receives $11.6 million to amplify research in nutrition and metabolic health

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Smart ring maker Oura files to go public, pitching investors on AI-driven preventive health by Heather Landi for FierceHealthcare.com, 4 September 2026.

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ADA review of members’ expulsion denies group censored opinions, called in police by Elizabeth Cooney for Statnews.com, 1 September 2026.

Almost three months after five members of the American Diabetes Association were ejected from the group’s scientific sessions in New Orleans for handing out an editorial criticizing federal funding cuts, an internal review has rejected claims of silencing protest and involving local police.  The findings from a five-person committee selected by ADA were described in a press release. The review is being sent to the ADA board for action, but it appears unlikely to quiet controversy that has persisted since June 5. 

I don’t have a subscription to StatNews … but just wanted to share the essense of the story.  I find it astounding that the ADA “internal review” rejected the claims.  Shame on ADA!  I understand their fundraising numbers are way down.  HEY ADA, WAKE UP! 

Your thoughts?  

Read more: ADA review of members’ expulsion denies group censored opinions, called in police

 

 

 

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