glucose monitor

As recently as the 1950s, one in three people diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes died within 25 years of diagnosis. People in the '50s had to monitor their glucose levels via urine testing and inject themselves with animal-derived insulin.

How far we've come. Today, researchers are working to develop an artificial pancreas for people with Type 1 diabetes that works with a smartphone or tablet to both monitors blood glucose levels and disperses insulin 24/7.

The goal, they say, is to reduce complications and improve the life expectancy of the millions of people with the metabolic disease -- because even though only 7 percent of them now die within 25 years of diagnosis, this rate is still far above general population mortality.… Read more

Glucose levels are 100 times more concentrated in blood than in saliva, which is why in spite of many efforts to use saliva, diabetics are still pricking themselves to get accurate glucose readings.

But now, harnessing the power of nanotechnology, engineers at Brown University say they've designed a biochip that can measure glucose levels in saliva almost as accurately as current devices can measure levels in blood.

To do this, the engineers etched a complicated array of thousands of plasmonic interferometers (no, this is not an episode of Farscape) onto a fingernail-size biochip. This means they were essentially using … Read more

With some 26 million Americans living with diabetes (8.3 percent of the U.S. population), according to the American Diabetes Association, a lot of research is going into how to make blood glucose monitoring more effective and affordable.

Researchers at Arizona State University and the Mayo Clinic are partnering up to develop a monitor that enables people to dab their tear ducts instead of prick their fingers--which could be a big deal for those who currently draw blood as many as a dozen times a day to monitor their blood glucose levels.

"The problem with current self-monitoring blood glucose technologies is not so much the sensor, it's the painful finger prick," Jeffrey LaBelle, a bioengineer and chief designer, said in a news release. "This new technology might encourage patients to check their blood sugars more often, which could lead to better control of their diabetes by a simple touch to the eye."

The team reported on the first stage of their research on the sensor in Diabetes Science and Technology in March 2010, and quickly sparked interest from Arizona-based nonprofit BioAccel, which works to speed up the process of bringing biomedical technologies to the marketplace.

Using funding from BioAccel, the team is now compiling data to apply for human clinical trials of the device, but major challenges remain, including accuracy, efficiency, speed of performing the test, reproducible results, and of course making sure the test sample does not evaporate before it can be read.… Read more

Blood glucose monitoring has improved greatly in recent years, with devices getting smaller, cheaper, and faster--a good thing, since almost 8 percent of Americans are diabetic, according to some estimates, and are encouraged to monitor their blood glucose levels anywhere from one to a dozen times a day.

So it should come as no surprise that the next-gen device, introduced by Italian product developer Giulio Sbarigia, is even smaller and faster, and bears some resemblance to the iPhone.

Designed by Pelikan, Sbarigia describes his device as ergonomic, with 50 tiny needles that are easy to load, supposedly painless, and leave … Read more