A nanotechnology-based sensor could soon tell whether someone has Type 1 diabetes — just by analysing their breath.
The sensor, which has been successfully tested by Swiss researchers, could also be used by emergency room doctors to determine whether a patient has developed diabetic ketoacidosis, a potentially serious complication that happens when diabetics do not take enough insulin.
Even diabetics could use the technology in their homes, to determine whether they need more insulin. Sotiris Pratsinis and colleagues at ETH Zurich in Switzerland explain that everyone has a little bit of acetone in their breath.
But people with Type 1 diabetes release unusually high levels of the chemical when they exhale. If they have diabetic ketoacidosis, a dangerous buildup of acetone in the blood, they exhale even-larger amounts of acetone.
They built a sensitive acetone detector by directly depositing from a flame plume a thin film of semiconducting, mixed ceramic nanoparticles between a set of gold electrodes.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
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