Glucose Meters

The diabetes mellitus is a chronic and incurable disease. It is characterized by high amount of blood sugar and can bring many complications if not controlled.

The glucose meters are a great ally in the control of blood sugar. They can display the amount of glucose in the blood in a few seconds. The first glucose meter was created in 1962 in the United States, consisting of a thin layer of glucose oxidase in an electrode. 

With the advance of electronics, this technology could be improved and taken to domestic environments, helping people with needs of controlling blood sugar. The glucose meter consists in basically an electronic device and , shown in the picture below:

The majority of glucose meters available in the market today are electrochemical. The test strips have electrodes where a voltage is applied to a digital-analogue converter with a current as the output of the chemical process between the blood and the enzyme in the strip. This output current goes through a current-to-voltage converter and is then amplified, filtered and converted into a scale related to the concentration of sugar in the sample of blood.

By: Henrique Zamponi

References:

<http://www.datasheetarchive.com/dl/Datasheets-AS1/DSAASSA00012389.pdf>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose_meter>