Excess sugar, or glucose, in your blood is not good. But a healthy body regulates it through insulin, produced in the organ called the pancreas.
If the body fails to do that, either because of genetics or an unhealthy lifestyle, diabetics have to adopt a grueling routine of constant monitoring of blood sugar and injecting insulin for the rest of their lives.
Both insulin monitors and delivery devices, called insulin pumps, are available, but so far, creating an automatic injector that does not require monitoring has proved to be a difficult problem.
After working on it for almost 20 years, scientists at Harvard University say they may be close to solving it.
“In essence, we use a patient model, a computational model, a mathematical model, to forecast into the future," said Harvard's Frank Doyle, a professor of engineering and applied sciences. "So we get a sense of how past insulin affects future glucose, how the past trajectory of glucose is going to play out for the next hour or two.”
Scientists say automatic insulin pumps should be on the market within five years.
What about a cure?
Finding a cure for diabetes would be even better, and laboratory mice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology may hold the key.
In the type of diabetes caused by genetic disposition, the human immune system kills pancreas cells that produce insulin. A gelatin-like substance engineered in an MIT lab shields those cells from the attack.
“We can take these human islets from stem cells and actually cure these diabetic mice for months," said Daniel Anderson, a professor of applied biology at MIT. "We have also shown that in primates we can put these little balls of new material in the abdominal space of primates and see that they don't form scar tissue, which is an important step towards thinking of using them in people.”
Scientists are optimistic that one way or another, or maybe with a combination of approaches, they will bring relief to diabetes sufferers within a few years.
Vocabulay
glucose: 葡萄糖
insulin pump: 胰岛素泵
研究:儿童上课不穿鞋 表现更出色
想赚的更多?穿的美比长的好更重要
看你网络头像就能知道你的性格
教你这几招 变身英语学霸
女性采用男性站姿更具领导范儿
只要认识到一点就能化敌为友
黑科技:手机贴手机就能充电
不用担心 机器人接管不了世界
14个人际交往小技巧助你变身万人迷
休假该去哪儿?旅游线路“盲订”成潮流
遏制购物欲神器出世,再买买买就电手
女性手提包脏过马桶圈
跟聪明的人在一起会让你变聪明
万达拟将商业地产公司从香港退市
四岁男童爬入猩猩池,动物园射杀大猩猩引争议
一份超全面的英语学习指南
研究称段子手男性更有魅力 怪不得谦谦受欢迎
27岁女孩租混血男友回家:被老妈嫌弃太帅
囧研究:25岁开始朋友变少!数数你还剩几个
选对配饰锦上添花,面试服装不乱搭
新生儿吃伟哥救命 竟然真的转危为安!
一句话证明你是单身狗:就是这么洒脱!
中国股市出现两个月来最大幅度上涨
借钱给朋友或家人时,可遵循5项重要的规则
世界首座3D打印办公室亮相迪拜
14招教你快速识别衣服质量
如何教孩子理财
特朗普吃麦当劳喝可乐庆祝初选获胜
两分钟视频尽显美甲百年演变史
印尼:性侵儿童者将被“化学阉割”
不限 |
英语教案 |
英语课件 |
英语试题 |
不限 |
不限 |
上册 |
下册 |
不限 |