Breathalyzer for Diabetes? Daily Test With No Needles Being Developed

As anyone who struggles with daily diabetes testing will tell you, having to prick your finger every day to test blood glucose levels is a painful process. Fortunately, those days may soon end. A new device may allow diabetics to test their breath to measure their blood sugar levels, similar to how a breathalyzer test works with alcohol.

According to a report from Newsday, a study lead by Ronny Priefer, a professor of medicinal chemistry at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass. has developed a handheld test for diabetes patients that would work much like the test for finding out a person's blood alcohol content. This so-called "diabetes breathalyzer" will measure how much acetone is in someone's breath. Acetone levels rise when blood sugar levels rise, and thus the new test would use this to determine if a person has too much or too little sugar in their blood. Acetone is the cause of the sweet and fruity smell in the breath of diabetes patients who have high blood sugar levels.

By using a film that reacts to acetone, the device is able to measure how much of the chemical is in the body. The device is currently around the size of a book, but the team is attempting to make it smaller.

However, this device still needs some work before it replaces traditional blood sugar level tests. There is no solid connection between acetone and blood sugar levels, but Priefer stated that if the connection can be established then the device can then be implemented for use in diabetes testing.

"If we can successfully show that there is a linear correlation between acetone levels and blood glucose [sugar] levels, the ease of which an individual with diabetes can monitor their disease state should be dramatically simplified," said Priefer. 

The biggest breakthrough, as Priefer points out, is obvious: the new testing method will make testing pain free. Priefer is hoping that the two critical clinical trials scheduled for 2014 will help solidify the connection between blood sugar and acetone so the device's study can move forward. However, Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the clinical diabetes center at Montefiore Medical Center, in New York City, is doubtful the device will make it past the research phase.

"I'm happy to learn that there are novel things in technology in development. But, the relationship between acetone and blood sugar isn't always one to one. People can have high blood sugars with low acetone, and low blood sugars with high acetone...I don't think acetone will be a good way of managing blood sugars, at least not for people with type 1 diabetes, where they really need very precise numbers to know how much insulin to give. It may be a help for people with type 2 diabetes, who aren't taking insulin," said Zonszein.