Smart Contacts May Help Diabetics Control Their Disease

Smart Contacts May Help Diabetics Control Their Disease

Controlling diabetes is the best step to making sure that the disease doesn’t leave you with any serious long term health complications. But to do that, it means that anyone with the disease has to constantly monitor their glucose levels to make sure that they’re staying within a healthy range.

Numbers that go up too high have to be treated right away. The constant monitoring can be a problem at times. You have to prick your finger often or rely on electrodes to test yourself.

But now, thanks to smart technology, there might soon be a way to monitor glucose levels so that diabetes can easily be controlled. Smart contacts are on the horizon and what these do is monitor the glucose levels but without the pain, complications or irritations from pricking the finger or from under-the-skin electrodes.

These contact lenses are made with a bio sensor that can pick up on the amount of glucose that’s in a person’s tear production. Trial testing for these contact lenses are slated to begin in the next year.

Further good news about the bio sensors is that they can be developed to be able to tell when a person has other problems with their health besides diabetes such as cancer. By the time the contact lenses do come to market, they’ll be designed in such a way that no one will know that you even have these sensors in the lens.

The technology is comparable to the type that you would find in a cell phone and when the lenses are available, they should work in conjunction with smart technology linked with your phone or tablet.

The contact lenses will be designed with comfort in mind and the sensors won’t be felt within the eye because they’ll be placed within layers that won’t touch the eye. The way that the lenses will work to test the glucose is through the use of a small opening.

The sensors will be able to access tears and determine what the glucose levels are without having direct contact with the eye. As for how the information will be delivered between your eye and the smart technology, there will be a small antenna within the lens.

This lens is thin enough so that it’s not easily detected and can’t be felt, either. But this part of the lens will be used to transmit your information. This information can be used by people with diabetes to alert them when their glucose levels reach unhealthy levels.

As for how often the lens will be able to check how high the glucose is, it can do it second by second. After it’s transmitted to the app, you’ll be able to check your device to see what your levels are. If there’s a situation where your levels are too high or too low, the app will alert you to that information.