Wearable tech to monitor glucose levels

Dick Tracy has nothing on the wearable gadgets under development to help people better police their diabetes. Wearable technologies in its totality — which include Google Glass and the Apple Watch — are part of a booming market that’s expected to swell to $20 billion by 2015 and is further expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of nearly 40% over the next six years.

(For the full Diabetes Report, including charts and additional coverage, click here.)



Google and Alcon in July announced they will take Google Glass one step further with the co-production of a “smart lens,” a contact lens that will be able to provide a continuous, minimally invasive measurement of the body’s glucose levels. The lens is designed to measure tear fluid in the eye and connects wirelessly with a mobile device.



The much ballyhooed Apple Watch was introduced by Apple earlier in September. And while there was no mention of it at launch, early rumors suggested the watch would have the capability to monitor blood-glucose levels on the surface of the skin, and that Apple is only awaiting approval from the Food and Drug Administration that will classify the Apple Watch as a medical device before introducing the new capability. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Apple’s smartwatch will feature as many as 10 health sensors in all, and the company expects to sell 50 million units in the first year.



And a new wearable vapor sensor being developed at the University of Michigan could one day offer continuous disease monitoring for patients with diabetes and a host of other diseases. The new sensor can detect airborne chemicals either exhaled or released through the skin, and will likely be the first wearable to pick up a broad array of chemical, rather than physical, attributes. U-M researchers are working with the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program to move the device from the lab to the marketplace. “Diseases [have their] own biomarkers that the device would be able to sense,” said Sherman Fan, a professor of biomedical engineering and one of the researchers helping to develop the technology. “For diabetes, acetone is a marker, for example.”