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Researchers hope to make needle pricks for diabetics a thing of the past:
Patients with diabetes have to test their blood sugar levels several times a day to make sure they are not getting too high or too low. Studies have shown that more than half of patients don't test often enough, in part because of the pain and inconvenience of the needle prick.
One possible alternative is Raman spectroscopy, a noninvasive technique that reveals the chemical composition of tissue, such as skin, by shining near-infrared light on it. MIT scientists have now taken an important step toward making this technique practical for patient use: They have shown that they can use it to directly measure glucose concentrations through the skin. Until now, glucose levels had to be calculated indirectly, based on a comparison between Raman signals and a reference measurement of blood glucose levels.
While more work is needed to develop the technology into a user-friendly device, this advance shows that a Raman-based sensor for continuous glucose monitoring could be feasible, says Peter So, a professor of biological and mechanical engineering at MIT.
"Today, diabetes is a global epidemic," says So, who is one of the senior authors of the study and the director of MIT's Laser Biomedical Research Center. "If there were a good method for continuous glucose monitoring, one could potentially think about developing better management of the disease."
Sung Hyun Nam of the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology in Seoul is also a senior author of the study, which appears today in Science Advances. Jeon Woong Kang, a research scientist at MIT, and Yun Sang Park, a research staff member at Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, are the lead authors of the paper.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday January 28 2020, @09:50PM (4 children)
Also, as Heinlein said... most questions that start with, "Why?" end with, "Money," as the answer. For glucose monitors... each of the companies has sweetheart deals with certain insurances. Most insurances will reimburse for only one particular brand of test-strips or meters. It's a case of accepting good enough because it's free (to the end user).
It's great that a newer method has been found. Now it has to be more economical than fingersticks. Or it will never see the consumer market.
And there's also the HbA1C measure done as part of a Comprehensive Metabolic Panel, which gives a more long-term glucose situation. It has it's own questions about accuracy / reliability, but is generally accepted as the standard for knowing how a patient has been managing their glucose over the past 3 months or so.
Bah, said enough already.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 29 2020, @08:04PM (1 child)
That's an answet that might satisfy <5% of the world, admittedly a noteably oblate sample, but what about the other 7.3 billion? (minus wuhantavirus adjustments)
> KEEP AMERICA OPIATE AGAIN
Nice sig! (did I misreade it?)
Wait - Now I know whose payroll you're on!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday January 29 2020, @10:46PM
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Thursday January 30 2020, @02:22PM (1 child)
To twist your point. :-) Because otherwise more effort might be put by modern medicine (and modern urban planning) into nutritional and lifestyle changes like the "Blue Zones" project. Example:
https://www.bluezones.com/2019/03/are-sitting-patterns-related-to-diabetes/ [bluezones.com]
"Based on the findings from our study and those of the Dutch researchers, when viewed with the earlier epidemiologic data and findings from the laboratory experiments, it seems that sitting patterns may contribute to the growing international diabetes epidemic."
And: https://www.bluezones.com/2017/12/diabetes-costs-u-s-employers-20-billion-annually-study-says/ [bluezones.com]
"Researchers compared communities with the highest and lowest prevalence of diabetes. Communities with low diabetes rates are more likely to have community members who exercise, eat healthy, and don’t smoke, which often leads to overall higher well-being performance. ... Original blue zones areas have much lower rates of diabetes and other afflictions like heart disease, obesity, and cancer. Preventative care begins at the community level."
An example from Cuban history:
https://www.healthambition.com/how-to-prevent-diabetes/ [healthambition.com]
"In recent news, a team of Cuban, US and Spanish researchers found that during the 1990s, the Cuban people, on a nation-wide level, had a significant reduction in overall deaths due to heart disease and diabetes. There was also an average weight loss of 5 kg per person in Cuba across the population during the period between 1991 and 1995. What could have caused this? The Caribbean nation isn’t known for its healthy eating habits, but during the early 1990s Cuba experienced a severe economic downturn due to the collapse of its ally the Soviet Union and an ongoing US embargo on imports. This led to a considerable drop in the number of calories Cuban people were consuming each day. At the same time, fuel for running cars was scarce and people took to walking or riding push bikes, thus increasing their daily exercise. Unfortunately, soon after the worst of the restrictions were lifted in 1995, weight gain increased dramatically. Followed, in the decade to come by a huge increase in heart disease and diabetes in Cuba. In fact, six years after the weight reduction period, diabetes mortality increased by nearly 50%. And by 2010, as fast food outlets and cheap processed food accessibility increased, around 53% of the population were estimated to be overweight or obese."
Some similar examples can be found during WWII England.
As that article also says: "The cost of treating diagnosed diabetes [in the USA?] has risen to $245 billion in 2012, from $174 billion in 2007. That’s an over 40% increase in just five years and diabetes now accounts for more than one in every five dollars spent in the massive US healthcare system."
Meanwhile people complain about who will pay for installing the sidewalks Blue Zones has show to improve health:
https://www.bluezones.com/2019/04/how-our-sidewalks-cars-trees-and-streets-affect-our-heart-health/ [bluezones.com]
"How does your neighbourhood affect your risk for heart disease? Most of us can imagine that if we don’t have clean drinking water, heat, hydro or even garbage collection, our health might suffer. But what if we don’t have a sidewalk? Can that really affect our risk for heart disease? ..."
See also to reverse most Type 2 diabetes and to improve the health of those with Type 1 diabetes:
"The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes"
https://www.amazon.com/End-Diabetes-Live-Prevent-Reverse/dp/0062219987 [amazon.com]
"At last, a breakthrough program to combat the rising diabetes epidemic and help millions of diabetics, as well as those suffering with high blood pressure and heart disease. Joel Fuhrman, M.D. Research director of the Nutritional Research Foundation, shows you how to live a long, healthy, and happy life—disease free. He offers a complete health transformation, starting with a diet with a high nutrient-per-calorie ratio that can be adapted for individual needs."
While props are due to those who are making better blood sugar monitoring devices, we continue to ignore the low hanging fruit of reversing most diabetes through diet and lifestyle -- in part because there is little profit in that compared to selling someone a lifetime supply of insulin and other drugs and monitoring devices.
See also the funny movie "Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead" and its sequel by Joe Cross on the need for information on good nutrition as well as social support for the journey into wellness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat%2C_Sick_and_Nearly_Dead [wikipedia.org]
"Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead is a 2010 American documentary film which follows the 60-day journey of Australian Joe Cross across the United States as he follows a juice fast to regain his health under the care of Joel Fuhrman, Nutrition Research Foundation's Director of Research. Cross and Robert Mac, co-creators of the film, both serve on the Nutrition Research Foundation's Advisory Board. Following his fast and the adoption of a plant-based diet, Cross states in a press release that he lost 100 pounds and discontinued all medications. During his road-trip Cross meets Phil Staples, a morbidly obese truck driver from Sheldon, Iowa, in a truck stop in Arizona and inspires him to try juice fasting. A sequel to the first film, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead 2, was released in 2014."
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday January 30 2020, @09:15PM
I wouldn't disagree with much of anything you've said. Diet and exercise are unquestionably the best methods to use. They are the front line of medical advice for any person with diabetes, and a period of diet and exercise is the first prescription whenever possible which is the vast majority of the time. (You can gripe about requiring multiple doctor visits, then, as the only the practitioner has done in that first visit is get baseline readings and told you something which is public knowledge and free.) That's what is done first. The patient might also be recommended for dietary counseling. And it rarely works. It is also impossible to coerce compliance with a diet and exercise regimen - it is not something under medical control.
So, if patient doesn't comply, then you do need medication. Insulin is rarely, if ever, a frontline prescription for Type II diabetes. Instead various drugs are tried which try and coax better glucose management. AFAIK you don't even really 'need' a monitor then. Your physician is going to be much more concerned with your A1C reading, really. The monitor is there for the patient's informational benefit and to hopefully inspire the patient to keep thinking about their diabetes as well. But if that works, then it does. (And you should still get recommendations for diet and exercise).
As to WWII and Cuba.... sure, deprivation can indeed improve diabetic outlook when the food supply is restricted. It's almost like we evolved to be able to handle scarcity better than excess. (Actually more like reality....) OTOH, deprivation can also bring on a whole host of other nutritional related problems. Anemia and osteoporosis to name two.
The only other thing I'd note is that if you're Type I diabetic, diet and exercise may still improve your outlook and cause less insulin usage. But that's a different picture - you will need insulin because your body just isn't making it.
That said, I look forward to looking at your links.
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