Diabetes breakthrough - but where's the catch?

As a regular visitor to various social media, I frequently receive notification of the latest scientific breakthroughs. Occasionally, I read one which demands my attention and changes the way I think. This morning I read one whose implications on medicine could be profound.

The project is still in it's early stages but clearly has the potential to empower millions of patients living with diabetes. When I was studying my first degree, a lecturer for whom I retain the utmost respect was trying to educate our cohort on the realities of living a life with diabetes. He was trying to impress upon us the gravity of a diabetes diagnosis. To make his point, he assured us that in the end, the diabetes will have the last say. In other words, as sure as you like, the diabetes will eventually be the death of you - be that directly or indirectly. That message stayed with me and I have since seen countless patients who bare testament to his chilling assertion.

A recent report commissioned by the International Diabetes Federation claimed that the world was losing the battle against diabetes. Put simply, more and more people are becoming less sensitive to their own insulin. In order to try and manage their condition, they have to keep their blood sugar levels within quite tight limits. If the blood glucose gets too high or too low, the health implications can be severe.

The challenge facing these patients has been to monitor their glucose level regularly enough. As things stand, they have to prick their finger tips to get the drop of blood needed to test their blood glucose. We can only imagine how this would affect anybody having to be done twice a day for life. It has been a far from ideal solution to a massive problem.

Then this morning I read a paper which left me speechless. The quest to find an alternative body fluid for glucose measurement has been going on for years. The inventive people at Google (x) have been experimenting with a smart contact lens which will measure the glucose in tears by using a minute wireless chip and an equally small glucose sensor embedded between the two layers of the contact lens. Wow! If they succeed, this will transform the lives of millions overnight. No doubt, the finished article will cost the patient or their healthcare system quite a lot of money but compared to the cost of poor glucose control, this will be a small price to pay.

I have observed one potential problem though. There might be a tendency for people on the cusp of becoming diabetic to become complacent knowing that a less invasive solution exists to manage the condition better than ever before. I wouldn't like to think that anyone would be so bold but fear that some might. That aside, this has the potential to rival the discovery of antibiotics in terms of it's potential use to global healthcare systems.

This has been assembled by researchers at Google. It would be churlish to not to congratulate them on the ingeniousness of their idea. Whatever your misgivings about social media and search engine companies, they're not all bad and clearly have a great deal to offer.