Fighting Diabetes, Proactively!

Retina Scans can be used to identify Diabetes.

Project Vision, the group offering the scans, says the 10-minute process can help identify diabetes and other diseases, such as high-blood pressure and glaucoma.[via]

NHS Choices , the website of NHS, today launched a new diabetes symptom checker on their website.

You can find out whether you have the risk of having Diabetes or not. This is very handy for all those who have a genetic probabilty of having diabetes.

Click below to check whether you have diabetes:
Diabetes Symptom Checker

This online tool also provides the user with clinically approved guidance on what their results mean and what next steps, if any, may be required.

“This interactive tool has been created with users in mind and is a valuable addition to an ever growing armoury of health resources being made available to the public by the NHS Choices,” said a spokesman. “It puts patients in the driving seat by giving them exactly the sort of reliable and dependable information they need to take control of their health at the click of a mouse.”

[via]

Scientists in Kolkata have developed an inexpensive bloodless test for diabetes patients that requires just a sample of air breathed out by the patient.

Instead of rolling up the sleeve for a needle jab to draw blood, the patient will simply have to take a deep breath and blow it out onto a device no bigger than a fingernail.

“It is the need of the hour to develop a simple non-invasive diagnostic procedure which would revolutionize diabetes management,” Amarnath Sen, of the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI) in Kolkata who led the research team, said.

Sen, who led a team of scientists from CGCRI and the Institute of Child Health (ICH) - also in Kolkata, believes the diabetes test kit, when fully developed and validated, should cost between Rs.500-700(12-15 US dollars). It will require no consumables and last for five years.

The expensive ‘glucometers’ currently available in the market come with equally expensive test strips that must be thrown away after single use.

[source IANS]

A recall has been issued for a brand of diabetic test strips that may be causing inaccurate readings of blood sugar levels. A local diabetic tells Eye on Health she found good reason to be concerned.

Bayer has voluntarily recalled test strips used specifically with the Contour TS blood glucose meter. The strips were produced on faulty manufacturing equipment that the company says has now been fixed.

As a type-1 diabetic, Las Vegas resident, Theresa Moore depends on test strips to stay healthy — testing her blood glucose levels four to 12 times a day. [source]

By using a chemical analysis method developed for air-pollution testing, UC Irvine chemists and pediatricians have found that children with type-1 diabetes exhale significantly higher concentrations of methyl nitrates when they are hyperglycemic.

The study heralds the potential of a breath device that can warn diabetics of high blood sugar levels and of the need for insulin. Currently, diabetics monitor blood sugar levels using devices that break the skin to attain a small blood sample. Hyperglycemia is common in type-1 diabetes mellitus.[via]