Tattoo, More Than Body Art
December 9, 2007
A US researcher has devised a “diabetes tattoo” that may provide some relief to diabetes sufferers from the constant needle pricks. For most glucose monitoring methods require a blood sample, usually taken from a needle. But now Gerard Cote, a biomedical engineering professor in the Dwight Look College of Engineering, is testing an experimental system using fluorescent polymer microbeads implanted just under a patient’s skin, reports Live Science.
Glucose levels affect how much light the beads emit when exposed to laser light, the blood glucose level could be measured with a wristwatch like monitor. When injected under the skin, the microbeads cannot enter cells-unlike tattooing, in which cells absorb the pigment. The beads remain in the spaces between the cells. These interstitial spaces are filled with water and glucose molecules.
According to Cote, the level of glucose in interstitial fluid is directly related to the blood glucose level measured by the traditional needle-stick method. The glucose in the fluid binds to the microbeads and when the beads are illuminated with a small laser, the fluorescent color of the beads changes in proportion to the amount of glucose present.
Source: ANI, Washington.
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