Artificial Pancreas On The Horizon.

USA Today  /The Tennessean (1/4, Wilemon) reports that for patients with type 1 diabetes, "there's a medical device on the horizon that will give them better protection from severe swings in blood sugar levels," the artificial pancreas. The new "device is not implanted in the body, but worn almost like a heart rate monitor. It has three parts: a glucose sensor and an insulin pump, which are nothing new, and a tiny specialized computer" that "tells the pump how much insulin to inject into the body." Last month, the Food and Drug Administration "issued its draft guidance for the development of the algorithm" that will determine when insulin should be injected into the body. "Estimates for when an artificial pancreas will gain market approval in the United States range from 2015 to 2017," the article notes