• Posted August 14, 2025

Advanced Tech Making Type 1 Diabetes More Manageable

Advanced technology has boosted the ability of children and adults to manage their type 1 diabetes, a new study says.

The number of kids under 18 who’ve achieved optimal control over their blood sugar skyrocketed 171% between 2009 and 2023, from 7% to 19%, researchers reported Aug. 11 in JAMA Network Open.

Meanwhile, the number of adults with optimal blood sugar control rose by 33%, from 21% to 28%, results show.

These big increases have been achieved with tech like continuous glucose monitors and improved insulin delivery devices, researchers said.

“Improving glucose control in patients with type 1 diabetes has been challenging, so these big increases are exciting for the field,” said lead researcher Michael Fang, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“These improvements have likely been driven by the widespread adoption of new monitoring and delivery technologies,” Fang said in a news release.

However, most type 1 diabetics still do not have lasting control over their blood sugar levels, researchers noted.

About 2 million Americans, including 304,000 children and teens, have type 1 diabetes, according to the American Diabetes Association. The autoimmune disorder wipes out insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, forcing patients to rely on insulin injections to survive.

However, it’s been historically difficult for people with type 1 diabetes to maintain stable, reliable control over blood sugar. In the past, they had to regularly prick their fingers to take blood sugar readings, inject insulin after meals, and carry around sugary items in hopes of warding off a blood sugar spike or plummet.

But continuous blood glucose monitors and insulin pumps have revolutionized patients’ ability to maintain relatively steady blood sugar levels throughout the day, researchers said.

For the new study, researchers analyzed health records for about 160,000 adults and nearly 27,000 children and teens with type 1 diabetes between 2009 and 2023.

Researchers found that these patients have broadly embraced the new technology available to them, including:

• A more than 20-fold increase in children and teens using continuous glucose monitors, from 4% to 82%.

• A more than 10-fold increase in adults with continuous glucose monitors, from 5% to 57%.

• An increase in insulin pump use of 16% to 50% among kids under 18 and 11% to 29% among adults.

More people also are using both types of devices at the same time – 47% of children and 22% of adults, results show.

“While we should be celebrating the improvements, we must remember that most patients with type 1 diabetes don’t have optimal glucose control, and there is a lot of room for improvement,” senior researcher Dr. Jung-Im Shin, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School, said in a news release.

For example, white patients and people covered by private insurance have higher rates of technology adoption and glucose control.

Among children under 18, 21% of white kids had achieved blood sugar control versus 17% of Hispanic children and 12% of Black youth.

The research team plans to use these records to further delve into the type 1 diabetes patient population, tracking the rate of common complications like heart and kidney disease.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on type 1 diabetes.

SOURCE: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, news release, Aug. 11, 2025