Doctors make progress toward 'artificial pancreas'

This October 2012 image provided by Medtronic shows the MiniMed Integrated System device, which doctors are reporting as a major step toward an "artificial pancreas." The device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed. According to the company-sponsored study announced Saturday, June 22, 2013 at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago the device worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients. (AP Photo/Medtronic)

This October 2012 image provided by Medtronic shows the MiniMed Integrated System device, which doctors are reporting as a major step toward an "artificial pancreas." The device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed. According to the company-sponsored study announced Saturday, June 22, 2013 at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago the device worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients. (AP Photo/Medtronic)

Doctors are reporting a major step toward an "artificial pancreas," a device that would constantly monitor blood sugar in people with diabetes and automatically supply insulin as needed.

A key component of such a system ? an insulin pump programmed to shut down if blood-sugar dips too low while people are sleeping ? worked as intended in a three-month study of 247 patients.

This "smart pump," made by Minneapolis-based Medtronic Inc., is already sold in Europe, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reviewing it now. Whether it also can be programmed to mimic a real pancreas and constantly adjust insulin based on continuous readings from a blood-sugar monitor requires more testing, but doctors say the new study suggests that's a realistic goal.

"This is the first step in the development of the artificial pancreas," said Dr. Richard Bergenstal, diabetes chief at Park Nicollet, a large clinic in St. Louis Park, Minn. "Before we said it's a dream. We have the first part of it now and I really think it will be developed."

He led the company-sponsored study and gave results Saturday at an American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago. They also were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study involved people with Type 1 diabetes, the kind usually diagnosed during childhood. About 5 percent of the 26 million Americans with diabetes have this type. Their bodies don't make insulin, a hormone needed to turn food into energy. That causes high blood-sugar levels and raises the risk for heart disease and many other health problems.

Some people with the more common Type 2 diabetes, the kind linked to obesity, also need insulin and might also benefit from a device like an artificial pancreas. For now, though, it's aimed at people with Type 1 diabetes who must inject insulin several times a day or get it through a pump with a narrow tube that goes under the skin. The pump is about the size of a cellphone and can be worn on a belt or kept in a pocket.

The pumps give a steady amount of insulin, and patients must monitor their sugar levels and give themselves more insulin at meals or whenever needed to keep blood sugar from getting too high.

A big danger is having too much insulin in the body overnight, when blood-sugar levels naturally fall. People can go into comas, suffer seizures and even die. Parents of children with diabetes often worry so much about this that they sneak into their bedrooms at night to check their child's blood-sugar monitor.

In the study, all patients had sensors that continuously monitored their blood sugar. Half of them had ordinary insulin pumps and the others had pumps programmed to stop supplying insulin for two hours when blood-sugar fell to a certain threshold.

Over three months, low-sugar episodes were reduced by about one-third in people using the pump with the shut-off feature. Importantly, these people had no cases of severely low blood sugar ? the most dangerous kind that require medical aid or help from another person. There were four cases in the group using the standard pump.

"As a first step, I think we should all be very excited that it works," an independent expert, Dr. Irl Hirsch of the University of Washington in Seattle, said of the programmable pump.

The next step is to test having it turn off sooner, before sugar falls so much, and to have it automatically supply insulin to prevent high blood sugar, too.

Dr. Anne Peters, a diabetes specialist at the University of Southern California, said the study "represents a major step forward" for an artificial pancreas.

One participant, Spears Mallis, 34, a manager for a cancer center in Gainesville, Ga., wishes these devices were available now. He typically gets low-sugar about 8 to 10 times a week, at least once a week while he's asleep.

"I would set an alarm in the middle of the night just to be sure I was OK. That will cause you to not get a good night of rest," he said.

His "smart pump" stopped giving insulin several times during the study when his sugar fell low, and he wasn't always aware of it. That's a well-known problem for people with Type 1 diabetes ? over time, "you become less and less sensitive to feeling the low blood sugars" and don't recognize symptoms in time to drink juice or do something else to raise sugar a bit, he said.

Besides Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson and several other research groups are working on artificial pancreas devices.

___

Online:

Diabetes info: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-06-22-Diabetes-Artificial%20Pancreas/id-5e0cf97363434ecebe1ad40d26b2b522

fab melo google glasses kim kardashian and kanye west henrik stenson jobs act greg mortenson jim marshall died

China TV shows men catching girl from 5-story fall

BEIJING (AP) ? Chinese state television has shown men catching a 2-and-a-half-year-old girl who apparently fell from a fifth-story window.

The girl, Qiqi, escaped with small scrapes on her face.

The security camera footage aired by CCTV showed a group of men in an alley pointing and looking up the side of a building. They dash into a huddle just as the youngster falls into their arms.

CCTV said workers at a delivery company nearby heard the girl crying as her legs dangled out the window. The report quoted her parents as saying they left Qiqi home alone while she was sleeping but she climbed onto the windowsill after she woke.

It happened Thursday in Ninghai, in eastern Zhejiang province.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-tv-shows-men-catching-girl-5-story-175928688.html

j lo j lo sacha baron cohen ryan seacrest octavia spencer meryl streep oscars school shooting ohio billy crystal

San Diego Flood Insurance | Lanni Insurance of California

San Diego Flood Insurance? 760-815-7563? info@lanniinsurance.com? Get quotes on San Diego flood insurance at Lanni Insurance of California today.? Our quotes are free, and offer affordable coverage on high quality flood insurance policies for your San Diego home in a flood area.? Call us today to get a quick quote on flood insurance in San Diego and see why our clients love our fast service and comprehensive policies.

If your San Diego property is located in a flood zone then you need flood homeowners insurance and Lanni Insurance of California is the place to get it!? We write flood insurance for homeowners in all of San Diego County and throughout the state of California.

For our clients? convenience we also are a full lines personal and commercial insurance agency, offering the following types of insurance and many more:

san diego, flood, insurance, flood insurance, san diego insurance, san diego ca insurance, san diego california flood insurance, flood insurance in san diego, flood insurance in san diego ca, flood insurance in san diego california, flood home insurance, flood insurance in san diego cal, san diego flood, california flood insurance

San Diego Flood Insurance

San Diego Flood Insurance 760-815-7563 info@lanniinsurance.com

Image via Redfin. ?

San Diego Flood Insurance

?

Source: http://lanniinsurance.com/san-diego-flood-insurance/

michael buble Jenni Rivera Alive Facebook Down bo jackson bo jackson hanukkah justin tv

A look at the immigration bill before the Senate

A look at the immigration overhaul bill now before the Senate, and details of a compromise border security amendment proposed Thursday by GOP Sens. John Hoeven of North Dakota and Bob Corker of Tennessee. The amendment has been agreed to by Democratic and Republican authors of the bill and is expected to be voted on within the next few days:

___

BORDER SECURITY

In the underlying bill:

?The bill sets goals of 100 percent surveillance of the border with Mexico and 90 percent of would-be crossers caught or turned back.

?Within six months of enactment of the bill, the Homeland Security Department must develop a border security plan to achieve those goals, including the use of drones, additional agents and other approaches; and develop a separate plan to identify where more fencing is needed.

?If the goals of a 90 percent effectiveness rate and continuous surveillance on the border are not met within five years, a Southern Border Security Commission would be established with border-state governors and others to determine how to achieve them.

?Before anyone in the U.S. illegally can get a new provisional legal status, the border security and border fencing plans must be in place. Before they can get permanent residency, the plans must be substantially completed, and a new entry-exit system must also be implemented at U.S. seaports and airports to track people coming and going. A mandatory system for employers to check workers' legal status must also be in place.

?About 3,500 new customs agents would be hired.

?The National Guard would be deployed to the border to build fencing and checkpoints and perform other tasks.

?Funding would be provided to increase border-crossing prosecutions and to create more border patrol stations.

In the Corker-Hoeven amendment:

?The amendment adds 20,000 new Border Patrol agents, doubling the deployment along the U.S.-Mexico border.

?It calls for 700 miles of border fencing to be completed, including 350 miles of new fencing to supplement 350 already in place.

?Instead of calling on the Homeland Security Department to develop a border security plan, the amendment includes details on what the plan must contain. This includes a dozen additional surveillance drones and an array of other high-tech devices to monitor the border with Mexico, including cameras and observation towers, seismic imaging and thermal imaging, and an airborne radar system initially used by the military.

?No one could get a green card until all these steps are in place. Government officials including the secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense must certify to Congress that the security measures have been implemented.

___

PATH TO CITIZENSHIP

?The estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally could obtain "registered provisional immigrant status" six months after enactment of the bill as long as:

(1) The Homeland Security Department has developed border security and fencing plans.

(2) They arrived in the U.S. prior to Dec. 31, 2011, and maintained continuous physical presence since then.

(3) They do not have a felony conviction or three or more misdemeanors.

(4) They pay a $500 fine.

?People in provisional legal status could work and travel in the U.S. but would not be eligible for most federal benefits, including health care and welfare.

?The provisional legal status lasts six years and is renewable for another six years for $500.

?People deported for noncriminal reasons can apply to re-enter in provisional status if they have a spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen or permanent resident, or if they had been brought to the U.S. as a child.

?After 10 years in provisional status, immigrants can seek a green card and lawful permanent resident status if they are current on their taxes and pay a $1,000 fine, have maintained continuous physical presence in the U.S., meet work requirements and learn English. Also the border triggers must have been met, and all people waiting to immigrate through the legal system as of the date of enactment of the legislation must have been dealt with.

?People brought to the country as youths would be able to get green cards in five years, and citizenship immediately thereafter.

___

HIGH-SKILLED WORKERS

?The cap on the H-1B visa program for high-skilled workers would be immediately raised from 65,000 a year to 110,000 a year, with 25,000 more set aside for people with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from a U.S. school. The cap could go as high as 180,000 a year depending on demand.

?New protections would crack down on companies that use H-1B visas to train workers in the U.S. only to ship them back overseas.

?Immigrants with certain extraordinary abilities, such as professors, researchers, multinational executives and athletes, would be exempted from existing green-card limits. So would graduates of U.S. universities with job offers and degrees in science, technology, engineering or math.

?A startup visa would be made available to foreign entrepreneurs seeking to come to the U.S. to start a company.

?A new merit visa, for a maximum of 250,000 people a year, would award points to prospective immigrants based on their education, employment, length of residence in the U.S. and other considerations. Those with the most points would earn the visas.

?The bill would eliminate the government's Diversity Visa Lottery Program, which randomly awards 55,000 visas to immigrants from countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States, so that more visas can be awarded for employment and merit ties.

___

LOW-SKILLED WORKERS

?A new W visa would allow up to 200,000 low-skilled workers a year into the country for jobs in construction, long-term care, hospitality and other industries.

?A new agriculture worker visa program would be established to replace the existing program. Agriculture workers already here illegally, who've worked in the industry at least two years, could qualify in another five years for green cards if they stay in the industry.

___

FAMILY IMMIGRATION

?Under current law, U.S. citizens can sponsor spouses, children and siblings to come to the U.S., with limits on some categories. The bill would bar citizens from sponsoring their siblings and would allow them to sponsor married sons and daughters only if those children are under age 31.

?Legal permanent residents can currently sponsor spouses and children, but the numbers are limited. The bill eliminates that limit.

___

EMPLOYMENT VERIFICATION

?Within four years, all employers must implement E-Verify, a program to electronically verify their workers' legal status. As part of that, noncitizens would be required to show photo ID that must match with a photo in the E-Verify system.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/look-immigration-bill-senate-203425111.html

space shuttle Torrey Smith Brother fiona apple CJ Spiller tracy morgan Chase.com Talk Like a Pirate Day

Novartis heart drug gets FDA's 'breakthrough' status

Virginia Republican lieutenant governor candidate E. W. Jackson said that the American government has been worse for "the black family" than slavery was during an event on Wednesday to celebrate Juneteenth, the holiday marking the end of slavery. "In 1960 most black children were raised in two parent monogamous families," Jackson said, according to the Virginia Daily Press. "By now, by this time, we only have 20 percent of black children being raised in two-parent monogamous families with a married man and woman raising those children. It wasn't slavery that did that. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/novartis-heart-drug-gets-fdas-breakthrough-status-062737860.html

kirk cousins ovechkin bks new dark knight rises trailer khloe and lamar oklahoma city thunder sunoco

Vice President Meets With Fallen Warriors' Children

Vice President Meets With Fallen Warriors? Children

By Marine Corps Cpl. Michael Iams
Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton

MARINE CORPS AIR STATION CAMP PENDLETON, Calif., June 19, 2013 ? Vice President Joe Biden visited with more than 40 children participating in the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors at Hanger 6 here June 14 as part of a four-day Good Grief Camp at Palomar Mountain.

TAPS brings together children who have lost a military parent. Program participants learn healthy coping skills.

?This camp allows the children to get together and see that they are not alone in their grief,? said Bonnie Carroll, president and founder of TAPS. ?Here [the children] are able to have fun and be around other children who have experienced the same feelings of loss.?

During their camp, the children and their Marine mentors visited the air station where they viewed aircraft like the CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter, the Explosive Ordinance Disposal Packbot and reconnaissance gear.

?We volunteer to help these children cope with the pain of their loss,? said Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Omar Hawkins, a warehousemen with Headquarters and Support Battalion and a TAPS mentor. ?Most of us have also lost a loved one and understand how they feel as we help them through their time of need.?

The children and mentors received a surprise visit from Vice President Joe Biden and his family as they landed at Camp Pendleton in Air Force 2.

?I just want to say how honored we are to be here,? said Biden?s wife, Dr. Jill Biden, who accompanied her husband. She noted that her son, Beau, deployed to Iraq a few years ago as a member of the Army National Guard. She and First Lady Michelle Obama champion the ?Joining Forces? initiative, which seeks support for military families and works to connect service members, veterans and military spouses with the resources they need to find jobs at home.

The Bidens emphasized the importance of finding someone to help through the difficult times.

?It?s important to be around people who understand what you?re going through,? the vice president told the children. ?I hope that is what you find out here at this camp. I hope you find that there are a lot of kids who understand and will be there for you.?

Biden sat with the children and answered their questions while they all ate ice cream.

?I asked the vice president how many states he has been to,? said Lily Blish, an 8-year-old who lost her father to cancer seven years ago. ?I would like to travel a lot like he does.?

After talking with the vice president, the children were able take a photo with him and get a tour of Air Force 2.

?This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the children to be able to meet with the vice president and ask him any question they want,? said Brad Gallup, a team grief facilitator with TAPS. ?This also let [the children] know they are still connected to the military community and how important they are.?
?

Source: http://www.defense.gov//news/newsarticle.aspx?id=120330

Stephanie Rice Meet the Pyro Karen Klein Colorado fires supreme court summer solstice Summer Solstice 2012

Digital 3-D atlas of brain reveals tiny details

NEW YORK (AP) ? Scientists have a new brain atlas to help them study their favorite organ. It's a digital, three-dimensional model called "BigBrain."

Its resolution is finer than a human hair, so it can reveal clusters of brain cells and even some large individual cells. It is being made available to scientists around the world.

To make the atlas, researchers sliced a cadaver brain from a 65-year-old woman into 7,400 thin sections, stained them to reveal tiny features, and photographed each one. Then they used computers to combine the data into a 3-D digital model.

The idea of thin-slicing a brain to study its anatomy is not new. In fact, complete bodies of a man and a woman were sliced and photographed about 20 years ago to create an anatomy reference called the Visible Human Project.

For the new brain-mapping project, the researchers chose the woman's brain for no special reason other than it was basically healthy, said Katrin Amunts of Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf in Germany.

She is lead author of a report on the atlas published Thursday in the journal Science. Scientists have begun mapping data from other brain studies onto the new model to gain new insights, said senior author Karl Zilles of the Juelich Aachen Research Alliance in Juelich, Germany.

___

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/digital-3-d-atlas-brain-reveals-tiny-details-183100483.html

grand canyon skywalk tonga pid corned beef hash the walking dead season 2 finale born free walking dead finale