ElectroNeedles and µPosts may offer pain-free glucose monitoring
It's a not-so-secret fact of life with diabetes that pricking your finger to check your glucose level hurts a lot more than giving yourself a shot, despite the fact that the latter looks a lot more painful to the uninitiated. So, anytime there's word of a blood-free way to test, diabetics tend to get about as excited as a kid in a sugar-free candy store. The latest efforts in that direction, developed at Sandia National Labs, are the micron-sized ElectroNeedles and µPosts (yes, yet another product using the Greek letter µ in its name — though at least this one makes a little sense, since µ is used both as a symbol for "micron" and in measuring insulin doses), devices that can be arranged on a disposable patch and test levels via multiple, tiny, painless subcutaneous punctures. Sure, we'd rather have that glucose-measuring wristwatch, but this sounds almost as good.
[Via MedGadget]
