Study suggests diabetics can use light to measu...( that would be about the size of a porta...)

that would be about the size of a portable CD player and probably cost around $500. Ohio University and the University of Iowa share two U.S. patents on the data analysis techniques used in the researchers' studies, including a method that would allow the instrument used in the clinical trials to be simplified and made potentially cheaper, smaller and more rugged. But the target of such a commercial device wouldn't be the tongue.

"The tongue makes a great place for measuring glucose in our tests, but a terrible place for a home monitor," Arnold says. "Eventually, we'd want to be able to make the measurements on a fingertip or ear lobe."

This isn't the first study to suggest infrared light can be used to measure blood glucose. Other researchers have presented data that suggested the theory had merit. But a 1998 article by Small and Arnold in the journal Analytical Chemistry argued that those earlier studies were done on tissue too thin to contain enough glucose for an accurate reading. The paper also questioned the credibility of previous experimental protocols. Any correlation between the amount of infrared light detected through tissue and glucose levels, they argued, was coincidental.

"Our new findings represent what we feel is the first comprehensive demonstration that noninvasive measurements can be made with infrared light," Small says.

Now that they know the technique works, the research team plans to improve the performance of the method. Small estimates the technique could be ready for commercial use in three to five years.

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Contact: Kelli Whitlock
whitlock@ohio.edu
740-593-2868
Ohio University
23-Jul-2000

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