Insulin Pump Changes Diabetes Treatment

In 1979, Yale doctors discovered that the best way to treat diabetes was to give insulin the way the pancreas produces it – in small continuous amounts with larger doses at meals.

Unfortunately, there was no easy way to accomplish this, until Dr. William Tamborlane and Dr. Robert Sherwin had an idea. Another Yale doctor was using a portable pump to give medicine to children who had a dangerous buildup of iron. They realized this pump would be ideal for delivering insulin to their young patients.

The insulin pump was first tested in seven children with diabetes and the results were spectacular. Dr. Tamborlane remembers staying overnight in the hospital so he could monitor the results. When he began to see that blood sugar levels remained stable, he knew that he and his colleagues had hit upon a novel and effective treatment for diabetes.

Last year, more than 350,000 patients with diabetes used the insulin pump and its popularity continues to grow.