For Diabetes Patients: Cell Phones to Nix Need For Finger Pricking?
Wednesday June 18, 2008
Image © Georgetown University
The three groups announced on Wednesday a joint effort for a product designed to nix or reduce the need for finger pricking with lancets when drawing blood. The new glucose-measurement solution and insulin delivery method is for patients of all ages with diabetes.
Georgetown, Gentag and SAIC say they will combine their intellectual property and know-how to craft a new glucose-monitoring method that takes advantage of disposable skin patches with wireless sensors.
The patches would transmit readings once an hour for 24 hours and deliver data to a handy device that’s already prevalent and in the pockets of most people already: cell phones. Emergency geographic patient location is another planned perk.
“We expect that this new, painless, disposable, wireless, glucose-sensor technology will significantly improve diabetes monitoring worldwide,” said Gentag founder John Peeters in a Wednesday statement.
Comments
Wow…keep up the good work with discovering new ways to help diabetics make staying healthy simpler!
Hi
when will this new device be released in the open market,please let me know many thanks.
Sounds exciting, but… I’m afraid we’ve heard this sort of thing many times before. So far, skin patches have never been proven to effectively measure glucose. Can they really pull it off?
Hello,
Wow! This is very exciting news for the readers of my website at Free Diabetes Alert
Adding this news to the website will give hope the diabetics. When will this product be ready?
Thanks,
Evelyn
As a diabetic, I would love this – if it actually could produce reliable results.
I agree with Pamela. I would welcome any improvements. When you do a test I would participate.
What a wonderful way to help people manage their diabetes! As a diabetic, I have to carry a ton of equipment (not to mention fast sugars) and supplies. If we could use cell phones to know blood sugar readings, how cool would that be? Plus, parents could be immediately notified of their kid’s blood sugars while at schools.
Since most insurance companies still fight paying for CGMS technology, and cell phones are so much cheaper, this might be an affordable treatment option that everyone could afford.
GREAT heads up!
For pre-diabetics and Type 2s controlling by diet alone, it is already possible to control blood glucose by about one finger test a week – once one has got fully into the DiabeticOptiCarbDiet (DOCD). So the proposed new method just provides raw data, while DOCD provides the maximum weight of any food (or food combination) a given individual can safely eat without their blood glucose rising above the level where damage leading to complications occurs.