{"id":300629,"date":"2017-03-10T06:20:22","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T06:20:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=300629"},"modified":"2017-03-10T06:20:22","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T06:20:22","slug":"can-sweat-patches-revolutionise-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=300629","title":{"rendered":"Can sweat patches revolutionise diabetes?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Scientists have developed a sensor that can monitor blood sugar levels by analysing sweaty skin.<\/p>\n<p>But rather than a gym-soaked t-shirt, it needs just one millionth of a litre of sweat to do the testing.<\/p>\n<p>The team &#8211; in South Korea &#8211; showed the sensor was accurate and think it could eventually help patients with diabetes.<\/p>\n<p>And in extra tests on mice, the sensor was hooked up to a patch of tiny needles to automatically inject diabetes medication.<\/p>\n<p>The team at the Seoul National University were trying to overcome the need for &#8220;painful blood collection&#8221; needed in diabetes patients.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Type 1 diabetes is caused by the immune system attacking the part of the body that controls blood sugar levels<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Type 2 diabetes is often caused by lifestyle damaging the body&#8217;s ability to control blood sugar levels<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Patients with both conditions need to medically control their blood sugar levels to prevent damage to the body and even death<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is how patients with diabetes would normally keep track of blood sugar levels:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/1539F\/production\/_95034968_gettyimages-177494254.jpg\" alt=\"Finger prick test\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/12AA6\/production\/_95045467_lee4hr.jpg\" alt=\"Sensor\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The sensor is flexible so it can move with the skin it is stuck onto.<\/p>\n<p>However, the scientists needed to overcome a series of challenges to make it work.<\/p>\n<p>There is less sugar in sweat than blood so it is harder to find, and other chemicals in sweat such as lactic acid can disrupt the results.<\/p>\n<p>So the patch has three sensors keeping track of sugar levels, four that test the acidity of the sweat and a humidity sensor to analyse the amount of sweat.<\/p>\n<p>It is all encased in a porous layer that allows the sweat to soak through and bathe the electronics.<\/p>\n<p>All this information is passed onto a portable computer which does the analysis to work out the sugar levels.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><\/figure>\n<p><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"> <span class=\"story-image-copyright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/178C6\/production\/_95045469_lee12hr.jpg\" alt=\"Computer\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Tests before and after people sat down for a meal, <a class=\"story-body__link-external\" href=\"http:\/\/advances.sciencemag.org\/content\/3\/3\/e1601314\">published in the journal Science Advances<\/a>, showed the results from the sweat patch &#8220;agree well&#8221; with those from traditional kit.<\/p>\n<p>However, for the next stage the researchers turned to mice with diabetes.<\/p>\n<p>They used the blood sugar monitor to control an array of microneedles to give the mice doses of the diabetes drug metformin.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef-1.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/442E\/production\/_95045471_lee21hr.jpg\" alt=\"Microneedles\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The researchers conclude: &#8220;The current system provides important new advances toward the painless and stress-free&#8221; care for diabetes.<\/p>\n<p>However, there is a leap between proving something can sense sugar levels in a lab and turning that into something that is so reliable people can put their lives in its hands.<\/p>\n<p>So the researchers next want to test how the patches work in the long-term.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have developed a sensor that can monitor blood sugar levels by analysing sweaty skin. But rather than a gym-soaked t-shirt, it needs just one millionth of a litre of sweat to do the testing. The team &#8211; in South Korea &#8211; showed the sensor was accurate and think it could eventually help patients with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[4850,4851,1727,4852],"class_list":["post-300629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","tag-diabetes","tag-diabetes-treatment","tag-health","tag-sweat-patch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=300629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=300629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=300629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=300629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}