Google Unveils Contact Lens For Diabetics

Seen this on the Sky News website today.

The device could help diabetics avoid the need to jab their fingers many times a day to monitor their sugar levels.

A new contact lens that monitors glucose levels in tears could help diabetics avoid the pain and inconvenience of having to prick their fingers to draw blood as many as 10 times a day. Nearly 400 million diabetics worldwide have to monitor their blood sugar and tweak their insulin dose to keep their levels under control, or face potentially dangerous complications. The contact lens has been developed by Google at its secretive X lab during the past 18 months. The device looks like a normal contact lens, but inside is a minuscule glucose sensor and wireless transmitter. Sandwiched in the lens are two glitter-specks loaded with tens of thousands of miniaturised transistors, while the lens is ringed with a hair-thin antenna. Shrinking the parts to such a small size was a major task, according to Brian Otis, one of the lead researchers.

Read more about it from the Sky News website.
Sky News

I'm optimistic that this is a test product that paves the way for more innovative ocular technology. Which is to say, this is a small means to a much larger end.

reply to post by wlasikiewicz


Interesting thread wlasikiewicz, not only because of the new approach to testing but because this comes from a tech source and not a medical research lab. My husband has been a type1 diabetic for almost 25 years and the cost and the constant blood letting for blood sugar testing can become something akin to torture at times. The focus of the diabetic industry must not only create innovation but must make sure that any new approach is a money making proposition not just once or twice but for the entire lifetime of the diabetic.

The other thing that occurred to me after reading this is that technology like this could help LEO identify and act appropriately when dealing with a seemingly non-compliant person. Being married to a diabetic for as long as I have I always shudder when reading threads and news stories about the police shooting a person who is acting strangely and not complying with commands of the LEO on the scene. More than once has he been dragged out of his parked car and searched because someone called in to report a person using a hypodermic needle, dare I say it, out in public.

Penny

Has it been tested already? By who, rabbits? =/

Anyways, sounds awesome! BUT... how are they going to constantly monitor BLOOD sugar from FLOATING on the tear film over the cornea!?!

My guess is this contact lens would need a microneedle that stays piercing one of the many blood vessels on the surface, just below the tear film, in the conjuctiva.

reply to post by gardener


It does state in the link that this would monitor the glucose levels in the tears themselves and warn if the levels reached above or below what would be considered a normal threshold.

Penny

Huh?

Tears (lacrimal fluid) come from storage in the tear duct, not a real-time circulating part of the circulatory system.

Weird.

post a few hours ago

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Indigent


Thank you Indigent, I must have missed it. Packing up my comments and heading on over.

Penny

Already posted here

Thanks for the heads up

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