Perspectives on Diabetes Care

Noninvasive blood glucose measuring devices

Aug 26, 2014, 01:00 AM

I knew there was a day soon where we would see several alternatives to pricking fingers for regular blood glucose monitoring. Isn’t it neat when new technology and healthcare cross paths? Have you heard of the GlucoTrack glucose measuring device by an Israeli company, Integrity Applications? Looking through the history, it appears as though it’s been going through testing for several years and approved for use in several countries. It is completely noninvasive device that looks like a smart phone with a headset. You just clip the measuring device on one ear lobe and a minute later, the screen displays your current blood glucose.

The device supports up to three users but each user needs a personal ear clip since they are calibrated separately. Then the user just needs to re-calibrate the device every six months when they change to a new ear clip. The device has a USB port and downloads data to your computer and also uses a touch screen display like a smart phone.

The GlucoTrack uses a combination of three technologies to get an accurate reading of the patient’s blood glucose: Ultrasound, Electromagnetic, and Thermal. The results are weighted and it uses a patented algorithm to display blood glucose results. On their website, they have several poster presentations from conferences. From October 31, 2013 at the Annual Diabetes Technology Meeting, they demonstrated how various factors that affect tissue characteristics such as age, gender, and body mass do not produce a variance in blood glucose results.

Though it does have CE mark approval, the GlucoTrack is still undergoing research before it is approved for use in the USA. Please comment below if you have heard of the GlucoTrack or similar noninvasive blood glucose measuring devices.