Technology for the medical field is increasingly at the forefront. And for chronic diseases such as diabetes, great strides are made: today we present this high-tech patch in graphene and gold, designed specifically for diabetics.
As we know, diabetics have to check their blood glucose level on a daily basis and possibly inject themselves with a dose of insulin, and this is an operation that requires a lot of time, energy and money. A team of Korean and US researchers has thought of making an electronic patch that detects the amount of sugar and automatically releases the drug through microneedles, without the patient doing anything. The groundbreaking research was published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
In the past, other methods of monitoring glucose levels have been tested, but the patch is much more comfortable and modern. It is made of graphene doped with gold particles and contains sensors that, in addition to the concentration of sugars, measure the humidity, pH and temperature of the skin.
It works like this: if the patch detects a glucose value above a certain threshold, the patch activates the micro-needles to inject metformin under the skin. The sensors analyze the chemical composition of the sweat and send the data to the app installed on the smartphone. A super-intelligent patch, therefore, that could save the national health system a lot of money.
