What are Diabetes Test Strips and How Do They Work?

Today diabetes glucose meter strips has made it possible for diabetic patients to manage this disease on their own. Diabetic Test Strips are revolutionary products that hve been developed and improved since past several years to give exact results and allow people suffering from diabetes to control it and lead a healthy life.

Blood sugar test strips being used by people today are based on the detection technology known as blood analyte levels. This was applied for a patent in 1994 and got the approval in 1996. Kevin J. Phillips is the first inventor of these diabetic strips.

In the beginning it was difficult for people suffering from diabetes to test their blood sugar levels on their own. This difficulty was because of the complicated equipments that were necessary to find the analytes present in the human blood originally. The equipments that were used originally were known as spectroscopic and spectroscopy equipments that were too big in size and were quite expensive to be effectively used by an individual for himself.

Diabetes test strips earlier used to change color due to the occurrence of a chemical reaction that takes place between the chemicals present in the blood and the chemicals present on the strip. The change in color indicated the level of glucose in the human blood. A standard scale was mentioned on a chart and the diabetic patient had to simply match the color of the testing strip with the color mentioned on the chart to know his glucose levels.

It is important to use good quality strips and to check the expiry date before purchasing. Expired strips produce incorrect test results. Therefore, strips taken out from a package should be used within a specific period of time and should be opened only when the patient is ready for the test.