WASHINGTON: Researchers have developed an inexpensive, portable, microchip-based test to diagnose type-1 diabetes. Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine developed the test which employs nanotechnology to detect type-1 diabetes outside hospital settings. The handheld microchips distinguish between the two main forms of diabetes mellitus, which are both characterised by high blood-sugar levels but have different causes and treatments.

Until now, making the distinction has required a slow, expensive test available only in sophisticated health-care settings. "With the new test, not only do we anticipate being able to diagnose diabetes more efficiently and more broadly, we will also understand diabetes better - both the natural history and how new therapies impact the body," said Brian Feldman, assistant professor of pediatric

endocrinology and the Bechtel Endowed Faculty Scholar in Pediatric Translational Medicine.

Type-1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease in which patients' bodies stop making insulin, a hormone that plays a key role in processing sugar. The disease begins when a person's own antibodies attack insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. The auto-antibodies are present in people with type-1 but not those with type-2, which is how tests distinguish between them. The old, slow test detected the auto-antibodies using radioactive materials, took several days, could only be performed by highly-trained lab staff and cost several hundred dollars per patient.

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