Katie Sullivan has type 1 diabetes and uses an insulin pump. She is also a health care professional. During the last daylight saving time, or DST, change, she accidentally shifted the settings on her pump from a.m. to p.m. and received an incorrect dose of insulin, which caused an unexpected increase in her blood glucose level.

Sullivan developed hyperglycemia because she was not getting enough insulin during the day. Fortunately, she caught the error before going to bed, when the altered insulin dose could have had damaging effects.

Sullivan, a nurse practitioner at the Michigan State University Health Care Endocrinology Clinic, shared her experience with colleagues Saleh Aldasouqi, professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism at the MSU College of Human Medicine who also practices at MSU Health Care, and Howard Teitelbaum, professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine in the MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine.

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Together, they authored an article on the difficulties of DST, which was published in Clinical Diabetes, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

“How much difference does an hour make?” Aldasouqi posed. “If you’re a person with diabetes who uses an insulin pump, it could mean the difference between well-being and disaster.”  

Sullivan is far from alone in facing the risk of incorrect insulin dosing due to time change errors. An estimated 400,000 people in the U.S. with type 1 diabetes use an insulin pump, and both Aldasouqi and Sullivan have seen patients who struggle with issues related to DST.

“Although many high-tech devices with clocks adjust to time changes automatically, most insulin pumps do not,” Aldasouqi added. “This glitch requires manual resetting which can lead to mistakes.”

On behalf of all patients who use insulin pumps, Aldasouqi calls for legislators to end DST. Here in Michigan, Senate Bill 770 was introduced in March and proposes to put the matter to a statewide vote this November. However, the bill never moved past the Committee on Government Operations.

While DST remains in effect, Aldasouqi believes that manufacturers should be obligated to equip insulin pumps with the ability to automatically update for DST changes — as well as time zone changes — to safeguard against resetting errors.

Until DST is discontinued, or insulin pumps have automatic time updating, Aldasouqi said patients who use insulin pumps should take care when resetting their devices to spring forward and fall back.

By Maureen Perideaux