[TooBusy]

My 10yr old daughter was diagnosed with type 1 when she was six. We have been using a pump for 3 yrs and a CGMS for two. From our experience, and that of all the families my wife has talked to, at this time CGMSs are not accurate or reliable enough to replace finger pokes.

However, there will come a day when technology will overcome. Assuming Obama will leave us alone of course.

[neverdem]

Even though all the immunology that underlies the autoimmune pathology in type 1 diabetes still needs to be worked out, IMHO, I think that the patient's own induced pluripotent stem cells, ipsc, will become the way to go, even if the procedure has to be repeated every so many years because of the ongoing immune attack on the newly replenished beta cells.

Pumps and sensors will still have a place in medicine, but they have their downsides, e.g. all foreign bodies can become colonized with pathogens, battery lifespans, drug replenishment, pump or sensor failure.

I'm not an immunologist either, but I remember reading about dendritic cells, a part of the immune system, reacting to molecules of insulin from adjacent beta cells. So, I don't see any immunosuppressant drug doing the trick any time soon either. Immunosuppressant drugs have a tendency to create their own new headaches.