page_title: Glucose meter
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Glucose meter / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Cover of the Preventing Chronic Diseases journal, showing a person measuring their blood sugar using a lancet and a glucose meter.
context_page_description: A glucose meter is a medical device for determining the approximate concentration of glucose in the blood. It can also be a strip of glucose paper dipped into a substance and measured to the glucose chart. It is a key element of home blood glucose monitoring by people with diabetes mellitus or hypoglycemia. A small drop of blood, obtained by pricking the skin with a lancet, is placed on a disposable test strip that the meter reads and uses to calculate the blood glucose level. The meter then displays the level in units of mg/dl or mmol/l.
  Since approximately 1980, a primary goal of the management of type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus has been achieving closer-to-normal levels of glucose in the blood for as much of the time as possible, guided by HBGM several times a day. The benefits include a reduction in the occurrence rate and severity of long-term complications from hyperglycemia as well as a reduction in the short-term, potentially life-threatening complications of hypoglycemia.
context_section_description: Leland Clark presented his first paper about the oxygen electrode, later named the Clark electrode, on 15 April 1956, at a meeting of the American Society for Artificial Organs during the annual meetings of the Federated Societies for Experimental Biology.
  In 1962, Clark and Ann Lyons from the Cincinnati Children's Hospital developed the first glucose enzyme electrode. This biosensor was based on a thin layer of glucose oxidase (GOx) on an oxygen electrode. Thus, the readout was the amount of oxygen consumed by GOx during the enzymatic reaction with the substrate glucose. This publication became one of the most often cited papers in life sciences. Due to this work he is considered the “father of biosensors,” especially with respect to the glucose sensing for diabetes patients.
  Another early glucose meter was the Ames Reflectance Meter by Anton H. Clemens. It was used in American hospitals in the 1970s.  A moving needle indicated the blood glucose after about a minute.
  Home glucose monitoring was demonstrated to improve glycemic control of type 1 diabetes in the late 1970s, and the first meters were marketed for home use around 1981.  The two models initially dominant in North America in the 1980s were the Glucometer, introduced in November 1981,  whose trademark is owned by Bayer, and the Accu-Chek meter (by Roche).  Consequently, these brand names have become synonymous with the generic product to many health care professionals.  In Britain, a health care professional or a patient may refer to "taking a BM": "Mrs X's BM is 5", etc.  BM stands for Boehringer Mannheim, now part of Roche, who produce test strips called 'BM-test' for use in a meter.
  In North America, hospitals resisted adoption of meter glucose measurements for inpatient diabetes care for over a decade. Managers of laboratories argued that the superior accuracy of a laboratory glucose measurement outweighed the advantage of immediate availability and made meter glucose measurements unacceptable for inpatient diabetes management. Patients with diabetes and their endocrinologists eventually persuaded acceptance. Some health care policymakers still resist the idea that the society would be well advised to pay the consumables (reagents, lancets, etc.) needed.
  Home glucose testing was adopted for type 2 diabetes more slowly than for type 1, and a large proportion of people with type 2 diabetes have never been instructed in home glucose testing.  This has mainly come about because health authorities are reluctant to bear the cost of the test strips and lancets.
caption: CDC image showing the usage of a lancet and a blood glucose meter
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