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Artificial Pancreas to Change Life of Diabetic Children

A patient receives a test for diabetes during the Care Harbor LA free medical clinic in Los Angeles, on September 11, 2014. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
A patient receives a test for diabetes during the Care Harbor LA free medical clinic in Los Angeles, on September 11, 2014. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
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Artificial Pancreas to Change Life of Diabetic Children

A patient receives a test for diabetes during the Care Harbor LA free medical clinic in Los Angeles, on September 11, 2014. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
A patient receives a test for diabetes during the Care Harbor LA free medical clinic in Los Angeles, on September 11, 2014. Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

An artificial pancreas developed by a team of Cambridge researchers is helping protect very young children with type 1 diabetes at a particularly vulnerable time of their lives.

A study published on Jan. 20 in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that it is both safe to use and more effective at managing their blood sugar levels than current technology.

Management of type 1 diabetes is challenging in very young children, because of a number of factors including the high variability in levels of insulin required and in how individual children respond to treatment, and their unpredictable eating and activity patterns. Children are particularly at risk of dangerously low blood sugar levels (hypoglycaemia) and high blood sugar levels (hyperglycaemia).

To manage children's glucose levels, doctors increasingly turn to devices that continuously monitor glucose levels and deliver insulin via a pump, which administers insulin through a cannula inserted into the skin. These devices have proved successful to an extent in older children, but not in very young children.

Current technology -- sensor-augmented pump therapy -- requires parents to review their child's glucose levels using a monitor and then manually adjust the amount of insulin administered by the pump.

Professor Roman Hovorka from the Wellcome-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge has developed an app -- CamAPS FX -- which, combined with a glucose monitor and insulin pump, acts as an artificial pancreas, automatically adjusting the amount of insulin it delivers based on predicted or real-time glucose levels. It is a 'hybrid closed loop system', meaning that the child's caregiver will have to administer insulin at mealtimes, but at all other times the algorithm works by itself. There are no commercially available versions of fully closed loop systems yet.

Working across seven centers in the UK and Europe, Professor Hovorka and an international team of researchers recruited 74 children with type 1 diabetes, aged one to seven years, to take part in their trial.

The trial compared the safety and efficacy of hybrid closed-loop therapy with sensor-augmented pump therapy. All children used the CamAPS FX hybrid closed-loop system for 16 weeks, and then used the control treatment (sensor-augmented pump therapy) for 16 weeks.

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Wildfires Rage in Los Angeles, Forcing Tens of Thousands to Flee

Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP)
Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP)
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Wildfires Rage in Los Angeles, Forcing Tens of Thousands to Flee

Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP)
Firefighters battle the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP)

A rapidly growing wildfire raged across an upscale section of Los Angeles on Tuesday, destroying numerous buildings and creating traffic jams as more than 30,000 people evacuated, while a second blaze doubled in size some 30 miles inland.

At least 2,921 acres (1,182 hectares) of the Pacific Palisades area between the coastal towns of Santa Monica and Malibu had burned by the Palisades Fire, officials said, after they had already warned of extreme fire danger from powerful winds that arrived following extended dry weather.

A fire official told local television station KTLA that several people were injured, some with burns to faces and hands. The official added that one female firefighter had sustained a head injury.

The second blaze dubbed the Eaton Fire broke out some 30 miles (50 km) inland near Pasadena and doubled in size to 400 acres (162 hectares) in a few hours, according to Cal Fire.

Almost 100 residents from a nursing home in Pasadena were evacuated, according to CBS News. Video showed elderly residents, many in wheelchairs and on gurneys, crowded onto a smokey and windswept parking lot as fire trucks and ambulances attended.

Fire officials said a third blaze named the Hurst Fire had started in Sylmar, in the San Fernando Valley northwest of Los Angeles, prompting evacuations of some nearby residents.

PALISADES FIRE

Witnesses reported a number of homes on fire with flames nearly scorching their cars when people fled the hills of Topanga Canyon, as the fire spread from there down to the Pacific Ocean.

Local media reported the fire had spread north, torching homes near Malibu.

Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley had earlier told a press conference that more than 25,000 people in 10,000 homes were threatened.

Firefighters in aircraft scooped water from the sea to drop it on the nearby flames. Flames engulfed homes and bulldozers cleared abandoned vehicles from roads so emergency vehicles could pass, television images showed.

The fire singed some trees on the grounds of the Getty Villa, a museum loaded with priceless works of art, but the collection remained safe largely because of preventive efforts to trim brush surrounding the buildings, the museum said.

With only one major road leading from the canyon to the coast, and only one coastal highway leading to safety, traffic crawled to a halt, leading people to flee on foot.

Cindy Festa, a Pacific Palisades resident, said that as she evacuated out of the canyon, fires were "this close to the cars," demonstrating with her thumb and forefinger.

"People left their cars on Palisades Drive. Burning up the hillside. The palm trees - everything is going," Festa said from her car.

Before the fire started, the National Weather Service had issued its highest alert for extreme fire conditions for much of Los Angeles County from Tuesday through Thursday, predicting wind gusts of 50 to 80 mph (80 to 130 kph).

With low humidity and dry vegetation due to a lack of rain, the conditions were "about as bad as it gets in terms of fire weather," the Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service said on X.

Governor Gavin Newsom, who declared a state of emergency, said the state positioned personnel, firetrucks and aircraft elsewhere in Southern California because of the fire danger to the wider region, he added.

The powerful winds changed President Joe Biden's travel plans, grounding Air Force One in Los Angeles. He had planned to make a short flight inland to the Coachella Valley for a ceremony to create two new national monuments in California but the event was rescheduled for a later date at the White House.

"I have offered any federal assistance that is needed to help suppress the terrible Pacific Palisades fire," Biden said in a statement. A federal grant had already been approved to help reimburse the state of California for its fire response, Biden said.

Pacific Palisades is home to several Hollywood stars. Actor James Woods said on X he was able to evacuate but added, "I do not know at this moment if our home is still standing."

Actor Steve Guttenberg told KTLA television that friends of his were impeded from evacuating because others had abandoned their cars on the road.

"It's really important for everybody to band together and don't worry about your personal property. Just get out," Guttenberg said. "Get your loved ones and get out."