Diabetes often referred to by doctors as diabetes mellitus is considered to be one of the leading causes of death. Having this kind of disease doubles your chance of acquiring heart attack. Knowledge about the disease will prevent someone from getting it or it can lessen the risks for diabetes complications. There has been several ways in detecting if someone suffers from it.
In two years, researchers say that this common life-long health condition can be detected in a saliva sample using a revolutionary new smartphone device, bypassing the painful use of needles. This gadget was developed by scientists at Tec de Monterrey in Mexico in collaboration with the University of Houston, as stated in Mirror. The device will give prompt results and could be utilized to diagnose the problem in low-income regions.
It is a cartridge adaptable to a mobile that that will record in a case a compound is present in saliva, which becomes visible if the patient has diabetes. "It's as simple as pregnancy tests, where the specific marker shows in a few seconds," explains project coordinator Dr. Marco Antonio Rite Palomares, director of the Biotechnology Center of the Tec de Monterrey FEMSA.
The project is planned to be completed in two years, "We wanted a device which could identify a biomarker in a sample of saliva, and it had to emit fluorescent light so a cell phone camera could records it," explains Rite Palomares. "While the idea is to make the patient's life easier, we also want to bring health care to the low-income population, helping to make and early detection before it can lead to more problems and take action to prevent high costs for the population and the government."
At the moment, the developers are looking for a company who may be interested on the large scale manufacturing of the gadget.
