THOUGH HE'D SPENT A DAY and night in the hospital, Thomas Brobson was perky and grinning at 8:30 the next morning. "I'm feeling great," said Brobson, who has type 1 diabetes. "I haven't stuck my finger in 24 hours." Even with his salt-and-pepper hair, Brobson, who runs a Christmas tree farm in southwest Virginia, doesn't look his 50 years. He was diagnosed at age 44 and describes his style of blood glucose control as "naturally aggressive." Yet he didn't seem to mind handing over the reins of his diabetes management to a computer. Brobson had just completed a trial run of what's known as an artificial pancreas. Two weeks before, he'd spent an initial 24 hours in the same University of Virginia hospital, taking care of his diabetes by his usual methods. Under those conditions, Brobson's blood glucose dipped below 70 mg/dl-too low-eight times. But the second time around, with the artificial pancreas in control, his blood glucose level hit that threshold only three times.
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