Painless Ways for Diabetics to Measure Blood Sugar!
Instead of dreaded, painful finger sticks done
several times a day, people with diabetes may someday be able to accurately
monitor their blood sugar levels as easily as taking their temperature.
They may employ infrared light waves and
computers instead of needles and blood glucose meters by means of cutting-edge
technology that uses the same principals of ultrasound but with better
resolution.
The first trials of these experimental techniques
suggest there may be new, painless, and noninvasive ways to accurately keep tabs
on blood sugar levels, according to two studies in the December issue of
Diabetes Care, a medical journal published by the American Diabetes Association.
In one study, a prototype of a new device
estimated blood sugar "with clinically acceptable accuracy," says lead
researcher Carl Malchoff, MD, of the University of Connecticut Health Center.
The handheld device performs like an ear
thermometer by measuring the body's infrared heat emissions. Dr. Malchoff
stated that, "You just place it against the eardrum for about 10 or 15 seconds
to measure blood glucose levels." "In fact, it basically is an ear thermometer
like you would buy over-the-counter."
Besides the handheld model, which is about the
size of a cell phone, Janusz Buchert, PhD, inventor of the device and president
of Infratec Inc., said that he hopes to raise enough money to develop another
prototype that could provide continuous blood sugar monitoring. "This would be
worn like a hearing aid and could be connected to an implanted insulin pump," he
says.
In the first independent clinical study of this noninvasive blood glucose prototype based on thermal emission in the mid-infrared spectral region has demonstrated glucose measurements with clinically acceptable accuracy but without the necessity of individual daily calibration.
Source: Diabetes In Control Dot Com: Diabetes Care 25:2268-2275,
2002.
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