Tattoos May Be Useful to Monitor Diabetes

Patients with type I diabetes may prick multiple times a day to determine their blood glucose levels. This is because their life depends on the fine balance in glucose homeostasis which is affected by the lack of insulin in the blood. Insulin is necessary to control blood glucose levels, and these diabetic patients need to prick themselves to test blood glucose levels and administer insulin.

A recent discovery as reported in SciGuru.com may help type I diabetic patients from this painful procedure of testing blood glucose level by pricking. The report in this science news elaborates on a procedure discovered by MIT scientists, that patients can embed certain carbon nanotubes in their tattoos. The nanotubes will send a fluorescent signal proportional to glucose in the circulation. This signal can be captured by a glucometer and the blood glucose level can be displayed on the meter. Tattoos are taboos for some. But it can also be a boon sometimes, as found out by MIT scientists in this discovery.

About 8% of the population in the United States is diagnosed with diabetes and about 10% of all diabetics have type I diabetes. Type I diabetes is insulin dependent diabetes and used to be called Juvenile onset diabetes. As the name implies, these patients are dependent on insulin from the time they are diagnosed diabetes.

Insulin is produced by specialized cells called beta cells in the organ called pancreas. In type I diabetes patients these cells are destroyed by their immune system. That is why type I diabetes is also called an autoimmune disease. In autoimmune diseases, body’s own immune system, which is designed to protect itself from invading pathogens, mistakenly attack and kill some cells in the body. Rheumatoid arthritis, Graves’ disease and myasthenia gravis are all examples of autoimmune diseases.

When the immune system kills the pancreatic beta cells, these patients will not have insulin in their body. Insulin is essential in controlling blood glucose levels and in absence or deficiency insulin blood glucose level increases. This can threaten life. That is why diabetic patients need test their blood glucose very often and administer insulin as needed. In these patients, if they take excess insulin or exercise more, blood glucose can dip to dangerous levels too.

The discovery that nanotubes embedded in tattoos can facilitate a painless glucose testing method should be a promising news for type I diabetes patients.

The discovery is by MIT scientists is very important in this context as this can provide a non-invasive way to accurately measure glucose in the body. There are existing methods to measure glucose non-invasively. However, this invention, if found viable, may become superior to the continuous glucose monitoring devices. These devices utilize an implanted sensor, but the results are not as reliable as conventional glucose measuring instruments.

Already there are speculation on ingenious ways of using “tattoo meters”, as seen in a recent blog that suggested connecting the tattoo glucometers to gaming devices.

There have been extensive research to find alternative methods to test blood glucose levels. There are also aggressive research to implant insulin producing cells in the body. Some scientists believe that the patient’s own cells can be engineered to secrete insulin and implanted. These insulin secreting cells will automatically sense the blood sugar levels and secrete sufficient insulin to maintain glucose homeostasis.