A new non invasive method for measuring blood glucose has been developed by scientists at MIT.
The prototype has been tested, using light on skin to detect glucose levels, and plans to scale it down into a wearable are underway.
Apple may be offering blood sugar monitoring on your future Apple Watch if a new breakthrough is anything to go by.
Scientists at MIT have released research which was able to use a light to measure blood glucose. This is not only huge news for the world of smartwatches but also for anybody with diabetes, who may have had to take invasive finger pricks for blood measurements.
How does non invasive glucose monitoring work?
The MIT team used a form of Raman spectroscopy to detect glucose levels in the blood. This is done by shining near-infrared or visible light onto tissues in order to detect their chemical composition.
At the early stage the device used in testing was large - around the size of a desktop printer - far to large to work in a wearable.
But since then it's already been scaled down with a new prototype the size of a smartphone which is currently in testing. Researchers are working on making it even smaller, "about the size of a watch".
More work needs to go into not only scaling it down in size but also to ensure it can work accurately across different skin tones.
There are plans to run a larger study next year, working with a local hopsital, which will include people with diabetes.
So when this filters its way down to the mainstream, and Apple specifically, remains to be seen. But, at long last, non invasive blood glucose monitoring appears to be on its way.
