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Researchers at the University of Washington and UW Medicine might have found a sweet spot for increasing the early detection of prediabetes. The team developed a new system that employs the capacitive touch-sensing capabilities of any smartphone to measure blood glucose levels without needing a separate reader.

Researchers added circuitry to a test strip to enable self-screening for prediabetes on a smartphone. Image credit: Raymond C. Smith / University of Washington
The researchers describe the technology in a paper published in the Proceedings of the Association for Computing Machinery on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable, and Ubiquitous Technologies.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1 in 3 U.S. adults has prediabetes, a condition marked by elevated blood sugar that can presage type 2 diabetes.
The good news? If detected early, prediabetes can be reversed with lifestyle changes to diet and exercise. The bad news? Eight out of 10 Americans with prediabetes don’t know they have it.
Current screening methods typically involve visiting a healthcare facility for lab testing and/or using a portable glucometer for at-home testing. Access and cost pose barriers to widespread screening.
“One of the barriers I see in my clinical practice is that many patients can’t afford to test themselves, as glucometers and their test strips are too expensive. And it’s usually the people who most need their glucose tested who face the biggest barriers,” said co-author Dr. Matthew Thompson, a professor of family medicine at the UW School of Medicine.

A person holds a black smartphone with the rear of the phone facing the camera in their left hand, and a narrow rectangular glucose test strip with various tiny circuitry attached in the other hand. Only the person’s hands and wrists are visible in the frame. The shot is professionally lit against a dark grey, almost black, background.GlucoScreen would enable people to self-screen for prediabetes using a modified version of a commercially available test strip with any smartphone — no separate glucometer required. Leveraging the phone’s built-in capacitive touch sensing capabilities, GlucoScreen transmits test data from the strip to the phone via a series of simulated taps on the screen. The app applies machine learning to analyze the data and calculate a blood glucose reading. Raymond C. Smith/University of Washington
“Given how many of my patients use smartphones now, a system like GlucoScreen could really transform our ability to screen and monitor people with prediabetes and even diabetes.”
In conventional screening, a person applies a drop of blood to a test strip, on which the blood reacts chemically with the enzymes on the strip. A glucometer analyzes that reaction and delivers a blood glucose reading, said lead author Anandghan Waghmare, a doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering.

After processing the data from the test strip, GlucoScreen displays the calculated blood glucose reading on the phone. Image credit: Raymond C. Smith/University of Washington
“We took the same test strip and added inexpensive circuitry that communicates data generated by that reaction to any smartphone through simulated tapping on the screen,” Waghmare said.
GlucoScreen then processes the data and displays the result on the phone, alerting the person if a reading is high so they can follow up with their physician.
The researchers’ study results suggest GlucoScreen’s accuracy is comparable to standard glucometer testing.
The team found the system accurate at the crucial threshold between a normal blood-glucose level, at or below 99 mg/dL, and prediabetes, defined as blood glucose between 100 and 125 mg/dL.
Employing smartphones instead of another device to process data helps minimize the cost to manufacture the strip and the power required for it to operate, compared with more conventional communication devices methods such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
The test strip also doesn’t need batteries; it draws power from the phone’s flash.
This approach could make glucose testing less costly and more accessible — particularly for one-time screening of members of a large population.
GlucoScreen is a research prototype. The team said additional user-focused and clinical studies, along with alterations to how test strips are manufactured and packaged, would be required before the system could be made widely available.
Source: University of Washington
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