Making Diabetes Less Painful

For many people suffering from type-I (insulin-dependent) diabetes, one of the most difficult parts of dealing with the disease is puncturing their skin with a needle several times a day in order to monitor their blood sugar (glucose) levels. The routine is especially hard for children, who naturally tend to shy away from needles. Even some patients with type-2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes have to undergo regular blood tests in order to keep their blood sugar levels in check. But since constant testing of sugar levels is imperative to prevent life-threatening complications - such as heart attacks, strokes and blindness - pain has become an inescapable part of the daily routine for diabetics of all ages.

However, diabetics may no longer have to go through the painful procedure. Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Be'er Sheva and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States have developed a new painless method for testing blood sugar levels. In a recent issue of the prestigious British medical journal Nature Medicine, an article described a hand-held ultrasound device developed by BGU chemical engineer Professor Joseph Kost, Professor Robert Langer of MIT, postdoctoral students Dr. Samir Mitragotri and Dr. Michael Pishko, and Dr. Robert A. Gabbay of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

The powerful device greatly increases the ability of the skin to transport minute components in the blood to its outer surface. This means that a single, brief application of ultrasound to a small area allows painless, repeated measurement of blood sugar levels over many hours without the need for blood samples. The BGU-MIT team tested four healthy volunteers and seven patients with type-I diabetes. They treated a small circle of skin for two minutes with low frequency (20 KHz) ultrasound. Glucose values were obtained with accuracy comparable to that of existing blood-testing techniques. The BGU-MIT team has since developed an improved version that takes only 30 seconds to prepare the skin instead of two minutes.

"Our goal is to develop a patch or watch-like device that would go on the skin and report constantly on blood glucose levels," Kost explains. "We can even provide an alarm that would alert the patient if his sugar level was too high or too low, in which case he would take the appropriate action."

In the 1980s, Kost and Langer were reportedly the first in the world to use ultrasound to promote transport of substances through biological and other membranes. Since ultrasound can now also be used to aid the delivery of insulin, Kost adds, "we would like to design a device that not only measures glucose through the skin but also automatically delivers the correct amount of insulin required by the patient." The team is optimistic that the product will go on the market in the near future, benefiting diabetics around the world.