Researchers develop blood sugar-monitoring contacts

They're not the only ones working on contact lenses that measure blood sugar levels, but researchers at the University of Maryland's Biotechnology Institute led by Dr. Chris Geddes seem to have taken the technology further than most. They've reportedly developed special molecules that can detect glucose at very low levels which, when incorporated into a pair of contact lenses, should be adequate for detecting the amount of glucose in the wearer's tears -- which is about one tenth the amount in blood. What's more, unlike previous versions of the technology -- which required an additional device to read the results -- Geddes' new lenses will be able to simply display the results as a dot in the wearer's field of vision, changing colors to indicate low or high blood sugar levels. A lot more pleasant than the pin prick most diabetics now use to monitor their blood sugar to be sure, although as you can no doubt guess, more testing is needed before the lenses can be released into the wild.

[Via Digg]

[mjrkjm @ Nov 15th 2006 7:05AM]

dude, im in that class

[Joel miller @ Nov 15th 2006 10:51AM]

Seems like a great early detection/warning device. If it's accurate and repeatable, why not pull your eyelid down and swab for test there instead of pin pricks as they do now? Alot less invasive.

[David Hutchinson @ Nov 17th 2006 11:13AM]

Because it involves sticking a swab in your eye and as we stick needles in ourselves all day a pinprick is less scary that sticking something in your eye (especially with low blood sugar as we can be a shaky bunch). Less invasive it may be but it's not appealing. I LOVE the contact idea though, it would save so many problems.

[Rob @ Nov 15th 2006 4:21PM]

Again, good to see researchers are trying to make the life of diabetics easier. However, me being a diabetic with good eyes, I can say that Im not really comfortable with wearing lenses for merely that reason. Some time ago there was this buzz about a bloodsugar monitoring wristwatch, which measured right through the skin, so no need for a needle, sting, or blood. Problem was that it was completely inaccurate. However, the product's concept is a really good one. Just check your watch and see what your bloodsugarlevel is! Or set a little alarm when it goes below x or above y... I hope they're still woring on that. I'd much much rather wear that than these lenses.

[Meenakshi @ Mar 2nd 2007 5:59AM]

Hi. I am currently a customer of yours and using your software to track Blood Glucose. I am interested in exporting the data to excel or any other format. Is this possible in any way? I am an engineer and can work with raw data (or even write a quick program if I had access to an API) if that is what it took. Thanks in advance and look forward to your response.