A DIY ‘bionic pancreas’ is changing diabetes care
Insulin lowers blood glucose, which of course is a vital tool. However, there appears to now be shelf-stable glucagon [1], a hormone which can be injected similarly to insulin and raises blood glucose levels.<p>AFAIK there is only one company, Beta Bionics [2], that is working on commercialization of such technology with dual pumps. In this case, you could be more aggressive in either direction of pushing BG, because you have a safety net.<p>Because this feels like a holy grail / functional cure, I'm surprised the incredible DIY teams out there haven't trained their guns on doing this. Having both "turn it up" and "turn it down" knobs seems so much more valuable than squeezing the last 5% of efficacy of AID systems. I feel like glucagon is obviously "the answer", but I don't see much talk about it.<p>Is the problem that there is no hardware for dual hormone pumps? I would have thought by now they'd have hacked 2 patch-pump AIDs to work simultaneously.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947962" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/947962</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.thejdca.org/article/2023/06/05/fda-approves-beta-bionics-insulin-only-device-what-about-dual-hormone-" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.thejdca.org/article/2023/06/05/fda-approves-beta...</a>