DIABETES: The term "diabetes mellitus" refers to a group of diseases that affect how your body uses blood glucose, commonly called blood sugar. Glucose is vital to your health because it's an important source of energy for the cells that make up your muscles and tissues. It's your brain's main source of fuel. If you have diabetes, no matter what type, it means you have too much glucose in your blood, although the reasons may differ. Too much glucose can lead to serious health problems. Chronic diabetes conditions include type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Potentially reversible diabetes conditions include pre diabetes — when your blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be classified as diabetes — and gestational diabetes, which occurs during pregnancy. (www.mayoclinic.com)
SKIN AGEs: Numerous studies over the past 25 years have shown that advanced glycation end products (AGEs) accumulate normally in skin, but are elevated in people with diabetes. Like a "diabetes odometer," AGEs are a sensitive metric for the cumulative damage the body has endured due to the effects of abnormally high blood sugar and oxidative stress. In addition, studies have consistently found strong correlations between higher levels of specific skin AGEs and increased incidence of diabetes complications. Until recently, skin AGEs had no practical value as a commercial test because their measurement involved a punch biopsy (typically large enough to require a stitch) of the skin, and a complicated assay that could only be performed by a few academic laboratories. (www.veralight.com)
SCOUT DS: The SCOUT DS® is the first noninvasive test that can replace conventional blood-based diabetes screening. The easy to operate device needs no blood and does not require fasting. The patient simply places a forearm on the portable table-top unit, and a quantitative result is reported in less than four minutes. The SCOUT DS system is the first noninvasive diabetes screening system designed to provide a highly sensitive and convenient method for screening for prediabetes and type 2 diabetes based on the presence of diabetes-related biomarkers found in skin. AGEs have a robust optical signature that can be detected and measured via spectroscopic analysis. However, prior to the development of proprietary spectroscopic detection technology by VeraLight, no one had figured out how to normalize this for variations in skin color, blood content and structure. VeraLight's technology uses various wavelengths of near ultraviolet and blue light that are shined on the subject's skin. The light excites electrons in the collagen-linked AGE and causes them to emit light of a lower energy that is subsequently measured by the diabetes screening device.
For More Information, Contact:
Leslie Capo
Director of information Services
LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans
(504) 568-4806
lcapo@lsuhsc.edu
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