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Standards must be followed and testing can add a great deal of safety. And for an individual contributor, there could be potential liability if standards weren'
by twobitshifter 5y ago
Standards must be followed and testing can add a great deal of safety. And for an individual contributor, there could be potential liability if standards weren't followed. Even so, I think in terms of social value per line of code, you'd feel much better spending your time on a project like this.
We should understand that the alternative is very imprecise: poking yourself and trying to time the right delivery of insulin doses, based on your current blood sugar, exercise levels, meals, etc. It's a guessing game with diabetics, so this is a giant leap forward in making them healthier, even if the tech wasn't 100% perfect.
My dad had been lethargic as he ages, the doctors just told him that the level he was maintaining his blood sugar at was much lower than he should be at for his age. They also gave him an in-arm blood sugar reader. The difference from these small changes has been enormous. He seems more alert and healthier than he has in the last couple of years and he keeps more on top of the sugar levels with the new reader. My point here is that people risk their own lives trying to manage their own blood sugar, and even the smallest tech add, like a device that suggests the right insulin dose can be life altering. Diabetics who fail to manage their blood sugar properly can lose limbs and go blind. Given the choice of going it alone or using a technology used by many others, I know what I'd choose.
- heisenzombie 5y agoYes it's always worth remembering the alternative. In this case, the algorithm insulin_dose(blood_glucose, activity, carbohydrate, fat, protein, time_of_day, time_of_month, is_saturn_in_retrograde, **kwargs) has to get run: Either a microcontroller does it or a person (tired? hungry? intoxicated? distracted?) has to do do it in their head.
- nwallin 5y agoSure, but a tired/hungry/drunk/distracted human failure mode is "fuck it, it was 22 units 12 this morning, 22 units yesterday evening, 22 units yesterday morning, I'll just do 22 units." A tired/drunk/hungry/distracted human isn't going to calculate a dose of -1 units of insulin and inject 4,294,967,295 units.
- ThalesX 5y agoWhat would stop a tired/drunk/hungry/distracted human from overdosing as they sometimes do?
- icehawk 5y agoExactly, a human won't won't dose 4,294,967,295 units, but dosing 4 units instead of 2 units is still a thing can drop you to 30mg/dl, as has happened with my SO.
- heisenzombie 5y agoYes, it's possibly true that failure modes could be more extreme. Practically, in the discussed system the pumps themselves have built-in maximum boluses so the control-loop is limited in how badly it can fuck up. Of course, you have to trust the pump firmware... That said, I've done some pretty stupid shit. Like the time I injected a huge bolus of novorapid, thinking I was doing my Lantus shot. Ugh.