Diabetes treatment has changed considerably over the years with the development of new medical technologies.
Here, Latest 7 recent innovations and find out how they can help in the treatment.
1.Encapsulated pancreatic cells offer possible new diabetes treatment:
A better diabetes treatment, many researchers believe, would be to replace patients’ destroyed pancreatic islet cells with healthy cells that could take over glucose monitoring and insulin release. This approach has been used in hundreds of patients, but it has one major drawback, the patients’ immune systems attack the transplanted cells, requiring patients to take immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of their lives.
MIT, Boston Children’s Hospital, and several other institutions may offer a way to fulfill the promise of islet cell transplantation. The researchers have designed a material that can be used to encapsulate human islet cells before transplanting them. In tests on mice, they showed that these encapsulated human cells could cure diabetes for up to six months, without provoking an immune response.
2.Glucosense ends finger pricking for people with Diabetes:
A new laser sensor that monitors blood glucose levels without penetrating the skin could transform the lives of millions of people living with diabetes. It could give people a simpler, pain-free alternative to finger pricking. This could help improve the lives of millions of people by enabling them to constantly monitor their glucose levels without the need for an implant.
The device measures the length of time the fluorescence lasts for and uses that to calculate the glucose level in a person’s bloodstream without the need for a needle. This process takes less than 30 seconds.
3.Smartphones can detect Diabetes, Pregnancy and Hazardous Gases using SPR Sensor:
Researchers at the University of Hanover, Germany, have developed a self-contained fiber optic sensor for smartphones with the potential for use in a wide variety of biomolecular tests, including those for detecting pregnancy or monitoring diabetes. The readings of the sensor can run through an application on a smartphone which provide real-time results.
4.’Smart’ insulin for better diabetes control:
MIT scientists have engineered a new type of insulin that can circulate in the bloodstream for at least 10 hours and gets activated only when blood sugar levels are too high. This new form of insulin would not only circulate for a long time, but would be activated only when needed — that is, when blood-sugar levels are too high. This would prevent patients’ blood-sugar levels from becoming dangerously low.
5.Google’s Smart Contact Lens for measuring Glucose levels of Diabetes Patients:
Google’s Smart contact lens is the most innovative wearable technology which will be more useful for diabetes patients. Google is testing a smart contact lens which will measure glucose levels in tears using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor that are embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material.
6.Delivering Insulin in a Pill for Diabetics:
Given the choice of taking a pill or injecting oneself with a needle, most of us would opt to regulate a chronic health condition by swallowing a pill. Now, Harvard researchers have developed an oral delivery method that could dramatically transform the way in which diabetics keep their blood sugar levels in check.
The protein does not fare well when it encounters the stomach’s acidic environment and it is poorly absorbed out of the intestine. The key to the new approach is to carry insulin in an ionic liquid comprised of choline and geranic acid that is then put inside a capsule with an acid-resistant enteric coating. The formulation is biocompatible, easy to manufacture, and can be stored for up to two months at room temperature without degrading, which is longer than some injectable insulin products currently on the market.
7.3D‑printed Glucose Biosensor for Painless Diabetes Monitoring:
A 3D‑printed glucose biosensor for use in wearable monitors has been created by Washington State University researchers. People with diabetes most commonly monitor their disease with glucose meters that require constant finger pricking. Continuous glucose monitoring systems are an alternative, but they are not cost effective.
Researchers have been working to develop wearable, flexible electronics that can conform to patients’ skin and monitor the glucose in body fluids, such as in sweat.
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