New Blood Glucose Testing System Helps Reduce Pain, Delivers Fastest -- Five Second -- Test Time for People with Diabetes

ONE TOUCH® Ultra System Lowers Barriers to Self-Monitoring for Many People

26-Feb-2001

A new system that makes daily blood glucose monitoring significantly less painful and more convenient for many people with diabetes has been introduced by LifeScan, a Johnson & Johnson company. Recently cleared by the U.S. food and Drug Administration, the ONE TOUCH® Ultra Blood Glucose Monitoring System is the first product to combine a less painful alternative to traditional fingerstick testing with the fastest test time and the broadest operating temperature range of any system available.

The new system is designed to significantly reduce the pain and disruption many people associate with daily blood glucose monitoring. It requires such a tiny drop of blood (one microliter) that it allows people to test on the arm, where there are fewer nerve endings than in the fingertips. In a clinical study, nearly four out of five people (78%) reported that testing on the arm with the ONE TOUCH® Ultra System was painless or significantly less painful than fingertip testing.1

The system eliminates waiting by providing clinically accurate results in just five seconds, compared to the 30 to 50 seconds required by the majority of other products currently available. In addition, its broad operating temperature range (43 degrees to 111 degrees Fahrenheit) gives people the freedom to test their blood glucose outdoors in a wider range of hot and cold conditions. These kinds of features can be important to frequent testers like Gary Hall Jr., champion swimmer and gold medal winner at the 2000 summer games in Sydney.

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"When I'm training and competing, I test my blood sugar as often as eight to 10 times a day, even minutes before a race," explains Hall. "I can't afford to let monitoring slow me down. With the ONE TOUCH® Ultra Meter, I can test with less pain anywhere, anytime and get virtually instant test results."

Reducing Pain Is A Top Patient Concern

Research has shown that by testing and controlling blood glucose, people with diabetes can reduce their risk of eye, nerve and kidney damage by up to 60 percent. That's why the American Diabetes Association recommends that many people with diabetes test their blood glucose as often as three or four times a day. Yet the national average for testing is less than half that (1.46 tests daily).

One major reason people don't test as often as they should is because of the pain of traditional fingertip testing. In fact, in a recent survey of 1,600 people with diabetes, 85% said reducing the pain of testing is one of their top concerns.2

"The real advantage of a product like the ONE TOUCH® Ultra System is that it reduces some of the major barriers that are preventing people from testing their blood glucose on a daily basis," explains Steven Edelman, M.D., a clinical endocrinologist, and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego. "With a less painful, more convenient way of testing, patients will be more likely to follow their doctor's recommendations and better control their blood glucose. This can help them avoid the very serious complications of diabetes."

Additional Features

The ONE TOUCH® Ultra System offers a number of other features to support better diabetes management. These include: a 150-test memory with time and date; 14- and 30-day test averaging; no cleaning; and the option to download test data to a personal computer using LifeScan's IN TOUCH® Diabetes Management Software, version 1.32, available separately from LifeScan. This Windows® -based software helps users spot trends and allows a more detailed analysis of factors that can affect blood glucose levels.

The ONE TOUCH® Ultra Blood Glucose Monitoring System is now available at pharmacies nationwide.

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