Is a Painless Blood Sugar Testing Device in Our Near Future?

The camera zooms in on a man dressed in a white lab coat. "If you have diabetes I have groundbreaking news for you." He intones. The first time I saw the commercial my heart raced. "Groundbreaking news?" I thought. Was there some new way to treat diabetes? Maybe a pill that would prevent some of the terrible complications from the disease like kidney failure?

Well, actually no. It seems that for some people who haven't experienced any of the disastrous complications that diabetes has to offer, the biggest problem for them is to have to stick their fingers several times a day to measure their blood sugar.

The "breakthrough" was a way to test by sticking your arm instead of your finger, which is supposed to be less painful. Tell that to someone with diabetes who has to go through dialysis three times a week, has both legs amputated, and is blind. Pricking your finger doesn't see like such a bad thing to them at all.

But testing your blood sugar is absolutely essential if you want to avoid the aforementioned complications. So I guess that anything that will make patients test more is at least something if not the promise of a new actual breakthrough.

The worldwide glucose testing market is some $12 billion a year. That's a real incentive to develop a blood sugar testing system that is noninvasive and doesn't hurt at all. Back in 1991 it was announced that such a device that used light waves instead of finger pricks was just a couple of years away. It has been 20 years since and we still don't have one, although there is a handful of companies here in the United States that are still working on it, a couple of them right here in St. Louis.

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

"A scientist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis says his invention beats any. The university recently signed a licensing agreement with St. Louis Medical Devices, which formed last November solely to fund and market the noninvasive device."

The device works the same way as earlier models by shining a light through the finger and then measuring the differences in wavelengths to reflect changes in the blood sugar levels. It is similar to a device used by the Coca Cola company to measure the amount of sugar in their post mix soft drinks. Restaurants use them to make sure that their fountains are calibrated properly. The device has been available for years.

So why is blood sugar model not sold on the market? The problem is accuracy. Be off a few points on the soda calibration and you may not get the best tasting soda, but do the same thing for blood sugar testing and you may threaten someone's life.

The folks at the university say that an accurate device is about four years away. Other researchers say that they have one that will be ready in two years. They have a device now that measures blood sugar continuously by inserting a needle into the abdomen, but you still have to stick your fingers several times a day to make sure that it's accurate, so what good is that?

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/fitness/article_64d2b3f4-6b84-556f-b7dc-7500f438228e.html