Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Now, take a painless blood sugar test

Hong Kong scientists have invented a device to help diabetics measure their blood sugar painlessly for the first time — without pricking their fingers.

The instrument, which is the size of a mobile phone, emits a weaker form of infrared, or near-infrared, which penetrates the skin on the finger and homes in on the bloodstream. Out of the many components in the blood, the beam is able to identify bits of glucose through the frequency or wavelengths they transmit and the amount of blood sugar present would be displayed in 10 seconds.

This research was done at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Nursing. Its professor and associate head of research Joanne Chung said, "There are different types of cells in the blood vessels — red blood cells, white blood cells, other compounds, protein, glucose, cholesterol but our model selects those for glucose and tells you its levels."

A team of 28 experts — nurses, doctors, engineers, computer experts as well as a mathematician from Australia — toiled for four years and came up with a device which is at least 85 per cent accurate after five clinical trials.
And I think is instrument will become more popular in coming days. But being it emitted some kind of infrared rays into the body, it may cause some sideeffects. Whats your Opinion Guys!!!

1 comment:

Philipbkk said...

Blood Sugar tests have assumed significance due to the high levels of stress nowadays leading to generic diseases like diabetes...etc...This solution will certainly make it a lot simpler to test blood sugar levels.