Continuous Glucose Monitors
Nearly 600 million people globally and more than one out of every four Americans over 60 suffer from diabetes, the body's inability to control blood sugar (glucose). If not treated properly, diabetes greatly increases the likelihood of kidney failure, blindness, heart disease and stroke, amputations, and nerve damage.
One hundred years ago, it was a killer. Then, researchers discovered they could treat diabetes with animal-derived insulin, a hormone that manages blood sugar.
Insulin saved lives. But for diabetics to know when and how much insulin to inject, they needed to know their glucose levels. The only way to get that was to add urine with a reagent, heat in boiling water, and use the color change to estimate the amount of glucose in the urine.
This was hard to do three or four times daily. Measuring color changes was inexact. And since glucose took hours to show up in urine, diabetics were actually treating past levels. They had little insight into how their behaviors changed their glucose.
In 1965, doctors began measuring glucose in blood with an optical device that measured color change on a test strip. It provided faster, more accurate feedback. Within 15 years, biomedical engineers had turned the technology into a consumer device. Yet diabetics still needed to test themselves frequently.
The continuous glucose monitor changed that. Users put a patch on their skin and its tiny electrodes reached one-fifth of an inch under the surface to measure the glucose level of the fluid that fills the spaces between cells. Checking every one to five minutes, it transmitted the results to a smartphone app.
The result was life changing. Suddenly patients could see how their actions impacted glucose levels. They could see which foods sped or slowed glucose changes. Many discovered that while some exercises lowered glucose, higher-intensity exercises raised it.
Through continuous monitoring, diabetics received the information they need to adjust their lifestyle to live longer, healthier lives.