Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrispeel | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious what the build-your-own-pancreas people have to say about Tidepool's plan to build an iOS app to do the control logic, and at the same time developing standard interfaces to insulin pumps and glucose monitors. Any comments?

https://www.tidepool.org/blog/tidepool-loop-medtronic-collab...

View on HN

Yes! I think this is fantastic. Tidepool’s employees actually have worked on many of these open-source projects, are funded a lot by the JDRF (one of the biggest T1 Diabetes NFP’s) ans seem to be the most aligned with diabetic’s interests.

Personally I’ve been using their Tidepool software for two years before this and it’s very good. The Tidepool Loop is actually based off of another FLOSS APS called Loop - so it’s likely the efforts will not go to waste. That being said, there’s still possibility that the pump manufacturers have interest to stifle their development - but we’ll see.

> Any comments?

I hope they don't mess up the encryption on the pump commands. Especially with pumps that can deliver high doses that can be really problematic.

Is it possible to have interlocks whereby a pump will refuse to dose more than X ml over Y hours or is a fatal dose for some people in some scenarios less than a therapeutic does for others in other scenarios?

Yes, dosages vary by your size, weight, gender, stress, and other factors. Part of type 2 diabetes is often insulin resistance, but people with type 1 can also suffer from it as well (although it's not the cause of type 1). Some people even need to use highly concentrated forms of insulin, ie U-500 instead of the standard U-100.

Body weight is a huge factor, so what is fine for an adult can kill a child. There are a lot of factors at work here that influence this so there is no easy answer as to what is a 'safe dose'.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com