A break-through in glucose level monitoring
Researchers from the University of Bath (United Kingdom) have created a non-invasive, adhesive patch which measures blood glucose level without a finger-prick blood test. It means that millions of patients with diabetes all over the globe won’t need to conduct a painful and unpleasant finger-prick blood test anymore.
This system does not penetrate the skin, it just contains several micro sensors and is placed above рair follicles. The patch samples glucose from the interstitial fluid (fluid between cells) via electroosmotic extraction through follicular pathways in the skin. The glucose collects into small reservoirs and is quantified there. The other advantage of this method is the fact that it does not require calibration with a blood sample meaning that finger-prick blood test becomes absolutely unnecessary.
The paper was published in Nature Nanotechnology on the 9th of April. The research team hopes that this patch will become a cheap and convenient device which will measure blood glucose level on a regular basis and automatically send it to patients’ phone or smartwatch warning them when they need to take urgent actions to normalize glucose concentration.