Doctor Sathish Garg tells how artificial pancreas aids diabetic patients

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Dr Sathish Garg, Prof of medicine and paediatrics, Barbara Davis Centre for Diabetes, University of Colorado, on Thursday said that artificial pancreas had shown good results in the US. Speaking to DC on the sidelines of Annual Global Diabetes Convention 2017 organised by Jothydev’s Professional Education Forum, Dr Garg said there would be newer versions down the road soon. “It is like iPhones that started with 3 and now we have 7. These innovations will  continue to improve,” he said. He said the biggest advantage of artificial pancreas was zero hypoglycemia and that is the number one factor. “If you get hypoglycemia that means you are not controlling your diabetes well,” he said and added, “Even sensor will tell periodically, predict when you will go low. It will alarm you and alert you.”

Dr Garg said the last thing which would probably happen was artificial intelligence.  “We have so much data on finger prints, on drugs, continuous glucose monitor, exercise or no exercise and food eating. All this data will be compiled in mobile phone in algorithm and will start to support people through artificial intelligence,” he said. He said artificial intelligence technology was five to 10 years away. Some part of artificial intelligence existed in the new pump. “If you are taking more insulin for the past six to seven days it will automatically adjust your basal insulin delivery up or down based on your need. In the next step it will learn which part of the day it needs to adjusts,” he said. Dr Garg said high cost of devices was always a factor in India.

“If you take the cost away these new innovations will help people hugely. But we can’t. There is need for government support or some sort of social support system that could help in making these technologies affordable and available,” he said. He said the finger pricking technology for checking sugar levels was 40 years old. It will start going away gradually. “We are witnessing a huge uptake of continuous glucose monitors in the US during the last 10 years. In the next five to 10 years people predominantly taking insulin, will be using continuous glucose monitors,” he added.