Spotlight on new diabetes technologies

Technological advances that could improve diabetes control in the future made the news in the past month.

Researchers in Chicago conducted a trial using text messaging to improve diabetic patients' self-care. During the 6-month trial, 74 patients received multiple diabetes-related messages per day, including educational messages, prompts to test blood sugar, and questions about their self-care practices. When patients' texted responses indicated a problem, a nurse followed up with a phone call. According to results published in the February Health Affairs, the majority of participants expressed satisfaction with the program, measures of self-care and glucose control improved (average HbA1c dropped 0.7%), and overall health care costs were reduced. The study authors concluded that a business case for the technology had been proven but that the fee-for-service payment system, lack of electronic interoperability, and regulations still posed obstacles to wider implementation.

Google announced on Jan. 16 that it is working to build a smart contact lens that would measure glucose levels in tears, using a tiny wireless chip and miniaturized glucose sensor. In a blog post, the company said it is testing prototypes that can generate a glucose reading once per second. The lens's measurements could potentially warn the wearer of high or low blood glucose with tiny LED lights. Multiple clinical research studies have already been conducted on prototypes, the company said.

Finally, on Feb. 4, the National Institutes of Health announced the launch of partnership with biopharmaceutical companies and nonprofit organizations to develop new diagnostics and drugs for several diseases, including type 2 diabetes. The goals for diabetes include building a knowledge portal that would have DNA sequence, functional genomic and epigenomic information, as well as clinical data on type 2 diabetes and its heart and kidney complications. The portal will include existing data and new data from studies involving 100,000 to 150,000 patients. The partnership will focus on DNA regions that might be critical for the development or progression of type 2 diabetes and search for natural variations in diabetic populations that might allow for targeted drug development, according to a press release.