Tear Drops For Testing Blood Sugar in Diabetes

  Scientists are reporting development and successful laboratory testing of an electrochemical sensor device that 


has the potential to measure blood sugar levels from tears instead of blood -- an advance that could save the world's


 350 million diabetes patients the discomfort of pricking their fingers for droplets of blood used in traditional blood


 sugar tests. Their report appears in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry

Mark Meyerhoff and colleagues explain that about 5 percent of the world's population (and about 26 million people in

 the U.S. alone) have diabetes. The disease is a fast-growing public health problem because of a sharp global 

increase in obesity, which makes people susceptible to developing type 2 diabetes. People with diabetes must 

monitor their blood glucose levels several times a day to make sure they are within a safe range. Current 




handheld glucose meters require a drop of blood, which patients draw by pricking their fingers with a small pin or lancet. 

However, some patients regard that pinprick as painful enough to discourage regular testing. That's why 


Meyerhoff's

 team is working to develop a new, pain-free device that can use tear glucose levels as an accurate reflection of 

blood sugar levels.

Tests of their approach in laboratory rabbits, used as surrogates for humans in such experiments, showed that 

levels of glucose in tears track the amounts of glucose in the blood. "Thus, it may be possible to measure tear

glucose levels multiple times per day to monitor blood glucose changes without the potential pain from the




 repeated invasive blood drawing method," say the researchers.

source:- Science Daily