Blood Sugar Levels Swing

Thanks to nanotechnology, the “lab on a chip” is no longer a futuristic goal — it’s here and it’s now. Stanford University scientists have developed a new microchip using gold coatings to diagnose type-1 diabetes in patients. The chip uses nanotechnology to replace the current costly and underutilized detection method.

Most of us are under the impression that type-1 diabetes is a childhood disease and type-2 diabetes is the adult form of the disease. However, more adults are being diagnosed with type-1 diabetes than ever before. Moreover, due to the rate of childhood obesity in the U.S., more and more children and teenagers are being diagnosed with type-2 diabetes.

American Diabetes Association Figures

Here are the American Diabetes Association’s diabetes statistics for the U.S. (as of 3/2013):

• Nearly 26 million children and adults have diabetes
• 5% of patients have type-1 diabetes
• 90%-95% of patients are diagnosed with type-2 diabetes
• 79 million people are prediabetic

This new diagnostic test can also detect auto-antibodies to screen for patients who are at risk for type-1 diabetes, for example, a direct relative of a type-1 diabetes patient. This will aid physicians in early treatment of patients who could potentially develop the disease to help prevent complications due to type-1 diabetes — or even prevent the disease entirely.

Senior author Brian Feldman, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatric endocrinology, the Bechtel Endowed Faculty Scholar in Pediatric Translational Medicine, expressed his hopes:

With the new test, not only do we anticipate being able to diagnose diabetes more efficiently and more broadly, we will also understand diabetes better — both the natural history and how new therapies impact the body.

Feldman also works as a pediatric endocrinologist at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.

Stanford University and the scientists involved are in the process of patenting this novel . A start-up company is in the works to help get FDA approval and get the device to market for use in the U.S. and globally.

“We would like this to be a technology that satisfies global need,” Feldman said.

Image by . “,” by Bo Zhang, Rajiv B Kumar, Honjie Dai, and Brian J Feldman, Nature Medicine, July 13, 2014, DOI: 10.1038/nm.3619. “,” by Catherine Paddock, Ph.D., Medical News Today, July 14, 2014. “,” by Erin Digitale, Stanford University News Center, July 13, 2014. “,” thehealthsite.com, July 14, 2014.