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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

#111

Post by analog31 »

MBCook wrote: post #20
analog31 wrote: post #3

I 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, out…

In the past, the pharmaceutical companies were big enough to serve as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for these startups. Now Apple. On separate occasions, I've met two people who tried this, in two different start-ups, though it was a different kind of spectroscopy in each case.

The challenge is, there's no a priori proof that a method can't work, because the information you need to make that assertion has to come from the same kind of research as trying to make it work. So far the start-ups have all failed in the same way, which is that a signal that looks promising in a test tube can't be reliably distinguished from the myriad sources of variation in the living system.

Note that I'm not in any way discouraging the work, just offering some historical context for the problem space.

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#112

Post by bobmcnamara »

raphman wrote: post #73
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's bullshit. To clarify, the actual science they did is interesting (to me at least, as someone not in the field). The paper is linked here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44172-024-00194-4 What is bullshit is the completely unwarranted conclusions in the title or in the quotes in the article. This is classic "science by press release". If you notice in the paper, they didn't do any testing, at all…

Thanks for calling this out. That was also my impression after having skimmed their paper: the only link to glucose monitoring is that the authors mention a few papers on the topic to motivate their research. And looking at the papers they cite, I see little evidence that this approach could work in practice in the near future. Most of the citations [2, 15, 16] are to their own work, which did not look at glucose mon…

I assume there's an RF mixer somewhere in there.

Edit: read the paper, now more confused

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#113

Post by bobmcnamara »

exceptione wrote: post #62

What I miss in the paper is any accuracy figure for glucose sensing. If this is an alternative to needles, how would the measurements compare? That is the first question one should ask. I fear we can assume that, although the approach might be novel, it can't replace needles for accurate measurement. But maybe I am overlooking the performance comparison.

They claim 90-some percent

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#114

Post by trimethylpurine »

This article is from 2014 and it should be noted as such. Looking at the comments, it's clear people have been misled by the presentation of this article to think this is an emerging technology rather than an old and inappropriate application of one.

For others reading; this is about a small radar technology, having nothing to do with research in the detection of blood glucose whatsoever.

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#115

Post by bkraz »

For anyone interested in noninvasive glucose sensing, I'd highly recommend https://www.nivglucose.com/The%20Pursuit%20of%20Noninvasive%...

RF-based approaches have the problem that they are not specific to glucose. A molecule of glucose absorbs infrared light at specific wavelengths due to its size and types of bonds. It does not have specific absorption of radio frequencies. In this paper, researchers measured glucose in pure water at concentrations 100X physiological levels. I'd like to see this work with whole blood or a tissue phantom, or measure glucose independently from any other solute.

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#116

Post by pythonguython »

caseyy wrote: post #50

This all sounds exciting, and good luck to all researchers earnestly working on it. If RF blood content diagnostics become possible, blood glucose sensing would be just the start. But as for this guy and his invention, don’t forget that in clinical setting, Theranos has shown more evidence of their product working. And GlucoWatch, a similar idea two decades ago, was FDA-approved and made it to market though still was…

According to the paper, this worked because the dielectric change from all other blood diagnostics was negligible, allowing glucose to be measured. Gluclose in blood is around 80 mg/dL. It may be possible to measure other blood chemistry metrics that are similar in concentration at other frequencies, but there’s a lot of blood tests, many of which would probably be impossible - like white blood cell count, anything enzymatic, something whose concentration is measured in ug/dL, or something that has no effect on dielectric properties of the blood. I wouldn’t expect to see a whole blood panel via wearable radar anytime soon, but we may get a few more tests from RF sensing.

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#117

Post by Beijinger »

Sorry to break the party. A buddy of mine is deeply skeptical, and he is one of the few with a decent amount of peer-reviewed publications about non-invasive blood glucose measurement. The idea to use "Radar near-field sensing" is everything but new and nothing has ever come out of it.

"Breakthroughs" in this field are a dime a dozen: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/liom-cracks-holy-grail-non-22...

My buddy is one of the few guys that has a sound (no pun intended) technology that might work. But future will tell. I won't give a link. Yes, the company secured funding.

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#118

Post by ilaksh »

devmor wrote: post #7
ilaksh wrote: post #4

I wonder if this micro-radar or whatever could be used for brain-computer interfaces somehow.

Radar doesn't seem like it would be particular useful for electrochemical activity.

https://healthylongevitychallenge.org/winners/multi-modal-mi...

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#119

Post by freedomben »

trimethylpurine wrote: post #114

This article is from 2014 and it should be noted as such. Looking at the comments, it's clear people have been misled by the presentation of this article to think this is an emerging technology rather than an old and inappropriate application of one. For others reading; this is about a small radar technology, having nothing to do with research in the detection of blood glucose whatsoever.

> This article is from 2014

How do you know? The date on the article says October 29, 2024

Re: Researchers design wearable tech that can sense glucose levels more accurately

#120

Post by sowbug »

Slightly OT, but just last night I finished a 15-day Dexcom Stelo CGM session. If you can afford the $99, I highly recommend it. There is a world of difference between an intellectual understanding of blood glucose and actually witnessing your body maintaining exquisite control over a system dependent on food, exercise, stress, time of day, and the idiosyncrasies of your individual insulin response.
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