Detect Diabetes With Light

Filed in archive News on October 27, 2006

In yet another fascinating development in diabetes research, you may not need a needle to diagnose the possibility of diabetes being present...you can just shine a light on the subject, so to speak.

The traditional method of checking a diabetes patient's blood sugar control is blood tests, but this can only reveal how well the process is going recently. The DiagnOptics tool illuminates advanced glycation end products (AGEs) -- blood-vessel-damaging sugar byproducts caused by the body's inability to burn sugar efficiently -- which provides a more "long-term memory" of blood sugar control, according to according to Helen L. Lutgers from the Gronigen University Medical Center, Netherlands.

Fascinating! You can read the rest of the details here. I think most people would agree to take a light over a needle any day!