The future is here. Imagine a contact lens that can keep track of blood sugar levels of diabetics. No, it isn’t science fiction. Canadian engineers in Waterloo Ontario just won a prestigious design competition for creating a lens that continuously monitors the glucose levels of the eyes tear film and sends that information to a patients’ mobile phone.
Harry Gandhi, co-founder of Medella Health says that the design can prevent many patients from suffering the negative consequences of diabetes. “This is something that hits home for a lot of people. It’s such a prevalent disease.”
Gandhi spoke about how diabetics must prick their fingers multiple times a day to check their glucose levels. However, the contact lens would continue to monitor sugar levels in a much less intrusive fashion. “Diabetes is sort of a slow poison.” When left unchecked it can cause numerous problems that include blindness, kidney failure and foot problems that can result in amputation. That is why Gandhi began the project three years ago.
The Medella co-founder says that the product is now reaching the prototype stage for the lenses that will include micro electronics. “There’s still a long way to go, but we’re coming to the end of the research side of thing and now focused on the development side.”
Beam me up Scotty. The future is now!
