Grove Instruments website update...... Non Invasive meter

Let's cross our destroyed fingers people. Though nothing is official at the moment something tells me we may actually be in for a big surprise.... in our favor

http://groveinstruments.com/

Gary, I looked at the little photo montage of this device. Yet, I did not want to "register" to the Grove Insruments site to get "more information" resulting in a barrage of emails to my already overburdened mailbox. How does it work? The photos show the user grinning and placing it up to her ear. Does it talk and she is trying to hear the result?Do you insert a part of it into the ear canal? Help me.. It looked a bit strange.

Gof Bless,
Brunetta

Brunetta,

If you navigate the site there is info on the technology. It uses some kind of infrared lighting. From what it says you can use it on your fingertip or earlobe. I find the earlobe thing a little strange but we will see. They are claiming it appears to be even more accurate then current blood required meters. Though I don't test often due to I can usually tell the highs and lows something like this will certainly help me minimize those episodes. Especially the lows. We still need a diabetes treatment facelift desperately. Next stop the Faustman Lab!

Interesting stuff Gary, thanks for the link.

Although it did make me laugh about suggesting that normal glucose testing via a finger prick is embarrassing. I think I would be more embarrassed holding some space-age looking device up to my head and attaching it to my earlobe in public ha...

To my knowledge this approach is not new. But the prototypes I have heard of had its problems. The skin is different from individual to individual: layering, thinkness of layers, blood circulation in each layer, humidity level and so forth. Thus it would be a significant achievement of Grove Instruments to have solved these problems. Maybe they work with a reference database of different skin types to automate the process. I have no doubts that this is possible and I am pressing my thumbs.

Perhaps you'd be like a Secret Service (MI 5?) guy walking around with a headset? I was talking about doing the astronaut voice (hold your hand over your mouth and talk out of the back of your through so you sound like Chuck Yeager coming out of the radio back at the base...) and having a thing in your ear would only enhance that sort of amusement I think?

"Houston, we have a problem...."

Yeah Im just wondering about years of thickened skin, calluses, scar tissue from all the years of pricking, and how accurate it would be able to read. I really love the idea of non-invasive testing, and really hope this does become a reality. My fingers look awful, and I have such a hard time sometimes getting blood from my fingers. Even when first diagnosed 28 years ago.

That is so funny, lol thanks for the laugh!!!

As long as its as accurate as the traditional meters or close enough in most scenarios it will be a reality. They apparently overcame the problems others failed to using a similar technology. Now I need to find out if this comany is public so I can purchase stock shares and become rich. Once this thing hits they will sell millions of them.

One of my professors in graduate school did it once and it is a lot of fun to mess around with. After I set the xmas tree up, I'm gonna go get "The Right Stff" at the library. I love that movie and haven't seen it for a while...

I didn't find them publicily traded on yahoo finance however you can sign up to volunteer for clinical trials on their website!

Hi. A link to this update came to my inbox via google news alerts, as I was watching Grove Instruments ever since a headhunter tried to introduce me to them. How's that for several levels of indirection? I wanted to comment but this site made me "register", which is understandable.
So the headhunter submitted my resume, and after a while word came back that they wanted someone more "hands on" and not a "manager type". I went back over my resume looking for anything that doesn't indicate that I'm hands on, or for that matter, that I'm a manager type.
But I'm digressing, I wanted to talk about their product. I decided to pop in to talk to someone in person about a job, and it turned out that they were doing a clinical trial of the non invasive meter. I signed up for the trial and spent two 4 hour sessions there getting tested every 15 minutes. Every other test was with an established blood type meter so they could make correlations.
So the meter uses optical technology, and as Holger (did I pronounce that right?) mentioned, there are issues with skin thickness and other factors. So, they added a new varying parameter, pressure, to the measurement. Rather than just placing the infra red optical transmitter and receiver on a patch of skin, the unit attaches to the earlobe and you can hear a motor kick in and you feel the device squeezing your earlobe. It iterates several times with differing amounts of pressure, probably getting different reflective and absorbtion properties for each step. I suppose there is an algorithm to relate the readings at different pressures to the actual glucose level.
It is a lot larger than most personal testers on the market, and that would be an issue with me, as I like a small kit. But doing away with the stabbing, the squeezing, the "sample too small" messages, and the clean up would be a win. I'm sure that once the technology is mature, it could be miniaturized.
My doc is a director at Grove and while he talks about the "green" benefits in terms of environmentally friendly, he also likes the idea of eliminating the the test strips. But for who's benefit? While it may save you and I $120 per month for strips, imagine how much it would save the diabetes clinic! They'll be able to charge just as large a fee for a glucose test, at lower cost for supplies and pocket the savings!
I'm optimistic about the technology, but pessimistic about it being marketable. Because the suppliers of test strips will probably buy the company and technology, and bury it so they can go on charging $1.00 per strip.
I wonder what ever happened to the company that had a blood extracting device that used a vacuum to bring blood to the surface. I tried it and it did not produce any bad effects I imagine it could cause micro "hickies" on some people. Maybe the lancet suppliers stopped them.

3674-IMG_20111024_125220.jpg (1.9 MB)

Thanks for the info. You know if that kind of stuff can and does happen where a company can buy out another companies technology to keep it from the public especially in a case like this not only is it inhuman but it should be illegal. Also the public should be aware of this kind of behavior so none of these companies get any public financial support what so ever. If Grove is mainly motivated to help diabetics then they will ignore any offers. I understand business is business and no company want's their profit maker eliminated but its sick to think companies would want this kind of advancement buried. FWIW Grove isn't the only company that is close to a non invasive meter. There is another device company out of St Louis that is apparently a few years away from their non-invasive meter that from what I've read may be more appealing then Groves. It's not only smaller but will give a reading within 5 seconds. As far as the Grove meter having to put a little pressure wouldn't be a big deal on the fingertip but does sound kind of awkward to have to do that on ones earlobe especially for 20 seconds.

Interesting link. While the "sensationalism" in the website makes me question its credibility a bit, I think the best part of this device is that it eliminates the costly and messy test strips.

For those who have concerns about Groves meter check out the pdf below. This is the other company I mentioned. They are not quite as close as Grove to commercialization but it will likely be a more appealing meter.

3673-NonInvasiveBloodabstract.pdf (55.4 KB)

Very interested and tried to register with Grove and their formmail had expired.