Patients with type I diabetes may prick Blood sugar formula Review multiple times a day to determine their blood glucose levels. This is because their life depends on the fine balance in glucose homeostasis which is affected by the lack of insulin in the blood. Insulin is necessary to control blood glucose levels, and these diabetic patients need to prick themselves to test blood glucose levels and administer insulin.
A recent discovery as reported in SciGuru.com may help type I diabetic patients from this painful procedure of testing blood glucose level by pricking. The report in this science news elaborates on a procedure discovered by MIT scientists, that patients can embed certain carbon nanotubes in their tattoos. The nanotubes will send a fluorescent signal proportional to glucose in the circulation. This signal can be captured by a glucometer and the blood glucose level can be displayed on the meter. Tattoos are taboos for some. But it can also be a boon sometimes, as found out by MIT scientists in this discovery.
About 8% of the population in the United States is diagnosed with diabetes and about 10% of all diabetics have type I diabetes. Type I diabetes is insulin dependent diabetes and used to be called Juvenile onset diabetes. As the name implies, these patients are dependent on insulin from the time they are diagnosed diabetes.
Insulin is produced by specialized cells called beta cells in the organ called pancreas. In type I diabetes patients these cells are destroyed by their immune system. That is why type I diabetes is also called an autoimmune disease. In autoimmune diseases, body's own immune system, which is designed to protect itself from invading pathogens, mistakenly attack and kill some cells in the body. Rheumatoid arthritis, Graves' disease and myasthenia gravis are all examples of autoimmune diseases.
