> The following, an interesting combination
> of factors:

> o Glucose testing via pinpricks, something
>    many persons with High Glucose Conditions
>    practice, -but- many don't for reasons of
>    cost -or- social pressures -or- pain -or-
>    blood-aversion -or- avoidance of being
>    reminded that one is different -or- other
>    reasons, the following may provide a
>    pinprick-free way to test glucose levels
>    in the very near future (an unusually
>    quick, one-year, estimate is given for
>    development of a laptop-computer-sized
>    device, but no estimate is given for when
>    the device might be widely available, and
>    it probably would take considerably longer
>    for that to occur)

> o Size? A device the size of a laptop com-
>    puter is mentioned, so that's something
>    that would require considerable down-
>    sizing in order to gain the degree of
>    acceptance that current methods (des-
>    pite their pinprick disadvantages) have

> - - -
> August 10, 2010

> Freedom from jab & ouch!
> - City boy helps devise needle-less sugar test
>  http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100810/jsp/nation/story_12793499.jsp
> - - -

> Excerpts [with inserts, not part of original article,
> inserted in brackets]:

> New Delhi, Aug. 9: An ... engineer at the Massachusetts
> Institute of Technology has helped devise a technique to
> monitor blood glucose using a beam of light that might
> eliminate annoying needle pricks.

> Ishan Barman is part of a research team trying to develop
> a non-invasive test for blood glucose, harnessing a light
> scattering phenomenon first described by Indian Nobel
> laureate C.V. Raman in 1928.

> The team has shown that it is possible to monitor blood
> glucose by shining a low-powered laser beam on the
> forearm and analysing the frequencies of photons that
> scatter, or bounce off. The photons that interact with
> any glucose molecules in the bloodstream return with
> glucose-specific frequency changes that may be used
> to quantify the glucose levels in the blood.

> "We're now at the proof-of-concept stage - the instrument
> we use is quite large," said Barman, who's pursuing a PhD
> at MIT. "But we're trying to develop a laptop-sized device
> that we hope to have ready within a year," he told The
> Telegraph.

> Researchers at MIT's Spectroscopy Laboratory have been
> pursuing a non-invasive test for blood glucose through
> Raman spectroscopy - a concept envisioned by the late
> MIT professor of physics Michael Feld - for nearly 15
> years.

> A major obstacle has been that a typical low-powered laser
> penetrates about half-a-millimetre below the skin where it
> can only measure the amount of glucose in the fluid that
> bathes the skin cells - the interstitial fluid.

> The interstitial fluid glucose levels are always slightly differ-
> ent from actual blood glucose levels. Although interstitial
> glucose levels may be used to compute blood glucose
> levels through a process of calibration, this requires fre-
> quent needle pricks.

> Barman ... helped develop a mathematical technique that
> allows the blood glucose readings to be predicted using
> interstitial glucose levels.

> ...

> The research is described in the current issue of the journal
> Analytical Chemistry.
>  http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac100810e

> ...

> The next phase of the research ... will aim at developing a
> practical instrument that could be tested on a large number
> of human volunteers. It requires a low-powered laser of the
> type used in laser pointers - and a detector for the analysis
> of the light scattered by the tissues. "Our goal is to design
> an instrument that might cost under $ 200," ...

> - - - end excerpts - - -

> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

> - - -
> Pro-Humanist FREELOVER
> C.ure I.nsulinitis A.ssociation
>  http://prohuman.net/cureinsulinitisassociation.htm
> - - -