A new device that monitors blood sugar constantly and lets the patient administer insulin right away if needed might greatly simplify life for people with diabetes, experts told a meeting on Monday.

The Medtronic Inc. device combines an insulin pump and a continuous blood-monitoring system. An alarm sounds if blood sugar goes out of safe ranges.

Patients are clamoring to test and use the device, researchers for the company told participants here at the meeting of the American Diabetes Association.

The device, called the Minimed Paradigm Real Time Insulin Pump and Continuous Glucose Monitoring System, is approved for people older than 18 with insulin-dependent diabetes. People with type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile diabetes, depend on insulin, as do some type 2 diabetics.

“It’s a pretty exciting advance,” said Dr. John Buse, vice president of the American Diabetes Association. “I am not sure that it’s the best pump ever and the best monitoring device ever. It’s not an artificial pancreas…but it’s getting pretty close,” Buse added in an interview.

Linda Frederickson, a nurse and diabetes educator who tested the device for Medtronic, said she was surprised at how much the device told her.

“I write books and used to write books about food and carbohydrate and I think I am pretty smart…but I found out more about foods using this sensor. You can tell what your favorite food…is going to do to you and when it will do it,” she told a briefing for investors and analysts.

Dr. Bruce Buckingham, a Stanford University pediatric endocrinologist who tested this and other monitors, said parents were surprised to watch the monitor’s effects on their children with type 1 diabetes.

“It really changed their habits and how they eat and how they deliver their insulin,” Buckingham told the briefing.

BETTER CONTROL

Buckingham’s study showed that, on average, the children in his study showed a 20 percent decrease in A1c, a commonly used measure of blood sugar.

“It was very easy to recruit for this study. Patients were just wanting to come in,” Buckingham said.

“If you have a child with diabetes, 75 percent of seizures occur at night so they have a continuous monitor that alarms them when they are low. For the kids, it allows them to have the alarm and makes them feel more comfortable in trying to bring their blood sugar down.”

Nearly 21 million Americans have diabetes and 3 million of them have type 1 diabetes.

Patients usually have to constantly prick their fingers during the day, test their blood sugar level, and then inject insulin or eat something to adjust their blood sugar level.

It requires constant vigilance and discipline. Patients do not show immediate symptoms if they fail to control blood sugar, but over time they may develop serious complications that can result in limb amputation, kidney failure and death.

Frederickson, a lifelong type 1 diabetic who said she had good control of her blood sugar already, said the device improved her levels even more. “I am just thrilled with it,” she said. “My A1c has improved. My glucose control was already fairly good but it had gone down half a point,” she said.

The company said it is seeking U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for use of the device in children but doctors are free to prescribe any approved device or drug as they see fit.