The explanation of how it works sounds like hand-wavy technobabble from a bad sci-fi thriller. Micro-radar metasurfaces? Amazing that it's actually a real thing.
Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
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Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#12Sounds exciting, but the fact their prototype is in a wristwatch form factor makes me wonder if it's aiming to be more of a media showpiece to hype investment valuation from those industry partners. Forward looking statements like "maybe we'll make it monitor blood pressure too" don't help.
Even at the size of a brick, or without conveniently hiding the power supply off-camera, forgoing needles would still be a huge boon to diabetics. Why not get the concept working and demo some hard stats, then miniaturize?
Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#13No mention of the actual accuracy (and precision) which is critical, obviously. Or did I miss it?
Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#14I work in a related field. Non-invasive blood glucose has been a holy grail for decades. It has bankrupted multiple start-ups. It would be exciting to see something that finally works, but my optimism is tempered.
Yes, the article is thin on facts. No mention of the frequency that they use, and how they measure the glucose level, which I'm guessing is some sort of spectral response. I'll take a closer look at the paper in Nature.
Direct link (from end of article): https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-024-00194-4
Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#15How can an algorithm be "artificial intelligence algorithm"?
Does it mean AI models are used for data fitting? Or clustering?
For data generated in such low scales, wouldnt statistical methods or procedural methods be sufficient or efficient or both?
Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#16> Currently, diabetics must frequently prick their fingers or rely on invasive wearable patches with micro-needles to track their blood-sugar levels Type 1 diabetic here - for what it's worth, CGMs aren't particularly invasive. At least in comparison to the many many years of finger pricking! But a smart watch solution would be cool. (I actually do get my CGM readings on my smart watch, which is really nice!) I know…
Agreed, cool and certainly some improvement but Freestyle is good enough already. Next step for me is more towards the new insulin research which activates only on glucose in the bloodstream (don’t recall how it was called but was here more recently also shared). This sounded more self controlling where it’s hopefully just making sure you have enough of it in your body and don’t need to take care of the rest. Until t…
> Freestyle is good enough already
In my experience, the quality control isn't very good (some patches will read much more accurately than others) and accuracy isn't that good when you get out of normal ranges.
I don't think the "invasive" nature of the Freestyle is a problem at all, but it would be nice to see some innovation on either the cost or the accuracy or both.
Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#17This title needs that missing exclamation mark. I read it straight as a single sentence and wondered when people used needles on their wrist.
Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#18Sounds exciting, but the fact their prototype is in a wristwatch form factor makes me wonder if it's aiming to be more of a media showpiece to hype investment valuation from those industry partners. Forward looking statements like "maybe we'll make it monitor blood pressure too" don't help. Even at the size of a brick, or without conveniently hiding the power supply off-camera, forgoing needles would still be a huge…
Type-2 diabetes is commonly comorbid with hypertension (similar root causes) so combining both sensors in a single wrist device would be useful for many patients. There are existing wrist blood pressure monitors such as Aktiia. Not as accurate as an arm cuff, but good enough for routine monitoring.
Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#19No mention of the actual accuracy (and precision) which is critical, obviously. Or did I miss it?
Maybe one of these has it: https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=BuqNOOwAAAAJ&hl=en
Edit: It's here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-024-00194-4
But he's clearly spent his entire career on this!
Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately
#20I work in a related field. Non-invasive blood glucose has been a holy grail for decades. It has bankrupted multiple start-ups. It would be exciting to see something that finally works, but my optimism is tempered.
Apple has already been working on this, would love the feature, and has an absolute hell of a lot of cash.
They also know how to turn very complicated things into miniaturized production products.
If they could provide enough proof that it works the way they say it does, I bet they could find a really good suitor there. And you know the various other health/smart watch companies would love to get one up on Apple, outside of the obvious direct benefit it would provide their customers.