From this blog in regards to that trial back in April:
http://www.diabetesmine.com/2013/04/the-worlds-funnest-clinical-trial-artificial-pancreas.html
“Zone Control” & Inhaled Insulin
One interesting bit that Dr. Zisser talked about was dropping the notion of “treating to target” in favor of “treating to zone.”
“If you’re always shooting for a perfect number, say 120, then the system has to constantly make adjustments and can never really catch up. But if you think about staying in a reasonable zone, or ‘zone control’ as we call it, you can achieve better results, and then you can make the zone tighter as treatment progresses,” he said.
He’s using this concept in other AP studies, including one that kicked off Feb. 12 using Afrezza inhalable insulin from MannKind. That study includes a total of 12 people (studied 2 at a time) hooked up to a similar AP tech system, who are given a small dose of the inhaled insulin at the start of each meal to mimic the cephalic, or first-phase insulin secretion. As we all know, speed of insulin action is a barrier to improved glucose control, and the Afrezza apparently kicks in very quickly.
So inhaled insulin is far from dead, Friends! It’s only approved for use investigationally right now, but Dr. Zisser says the results are impressive.
In the Afrezza study, they’re also testing a 45-60 minute exercise session “without telling the controller,” to see how well it reacts to unexpected glucose changes.
