Blood sugar Monitors: are they worth it? By Cassie Parvaz

Student Introduction My name is Cassandra Parvaz. I am an 8th grader taking FLVS classes in math, science, U.S. History, Language Arts, and Computers. I do not go to any other school. Science has always been my favorite subject because it is, in general, the most interesting and the least treacherous of my classes. My experience with my project (see next slide) is that I’m a diabetic and have therefore been doing blood sugar for as long as I can remember.

Project Introduction One day, when my mom was reading the newspaper, she stumbled across an article that said that blood sugar monitors give vastly different readings on pregnant women than high-tech lab equipment did. They found this concerning, but they also included a sentence that stated: “Instead, the[ women] should pay more attention to getting the readings right, said Dr. David Sacks, who heads the clinical chemistry lab at the National Institutes of Health.” That makes me mad because it’s blaming the innocent people when (pardon my French) the blood sugar monitors simply suck. I am trying to see whether or not this is the case with anyone, not just pregnant women.

Hypothesis I think that all blood sugar numbers recorded within one minute of each other will be within twenty points of the first number. The reason I’m putting an emphasis on the first number is because that’s the only one I would normally ever see.

Initial Research Sometimes, my number is so bad that my mom insists that I do my blood sugar a second time. When this happens, my second number is almost always vastly different from the first. There is always at least a 10- point difference. This combined with the aforementioned article made me wonder whether or not these monitors even know what they’re talking about. I believe my research will help a lot of people with my condition see the truth in those monitors they carry with them. How? The blood sugar number affects what diabetics do in terms of insulin, food, and exercise. And since dealing with blood sugar is a life-or-death matter, responding to a 251 that’s really a 209 in disguise could lead to fatal results.

Materials and Methods Here is how I do my blood sugar: 1. I wash my hands. 2. I replace the tip on the lancet so that I always have a new one. 3. I insert the strip into the monitor. 4. I do my blood sugar. 5. As part of this experiment, I did my blood sugar two extra times each time, for a total of three numbers in less than one minute. Please note that I don’t normally do this. 6. I did the extra blood sugar numbers 100 times.

Materials and Methods, continued I eliminated the possibility of human error by doing my blood sugar three times in less than one minute. I want to emphasize that nothing changed from one blood sugar test to the next. I used the same blood drop for all three tests. If my finger stopped bleeding, I didn’t count those results. The only thing that changed was the blood sugar strip, and according to LifeScan, the change from just changing strips was supposed to be 2.5% or lower.

Materials and Methods, continued According to the Mayo Clinic: “Inaccurate readings are usually due to human error rather than to a nonfunctioning or unreliable meter.” Based on my methods, I’ve eliminated the possibility of error on my part, namely human error. If anything wrong happens, it’s the monitor’s fault.

My monitor: The one touch ultra mini

Washing up and replacing tip

Pricking finger and doing blood sugar

Experiment Records

Results The chart on the left shows the number point differences. Some of the differences are bigger than others. However, they appear to be too clumped to make out anything clearly.

Discussion As you can see, the raw data of all 100 blood sugar sessions is a little hard to analyze. Therefore, I have set up some other charts in order to make the data clearer. Also, I found a sentence in the instruction manual for my monitor which said that: “Results show that the greatest variability observed between test strips when tested with blood is 2.5% or less.” And all I can really say about that is, “Yeah, right.”

Discussion, continued This chart shows the differences from the initial reading. Note that 18 bars are above the 20 point line. This means that my hypothesis is incorrect because 18% of the number differences are greater than 20 points. This also means the meter sucks.

Discussion, continued This chart shows the percentage differences between numbers. Note that only nine results are 2.5% or lower, which means that 91% are higher than the meter’s instructions say they can be. Again, this proves that the meter sucks.

Conclusion My conclusion is that, contrary to the article mentioned in the project introduction, it’s not the diabetics’ fault that the readings are sometimes wrong. 18% of the results were more than 20 points apart. 91% of them were more than 2.5% off. To be perfectly blunt, the blood sugar monitors suck. They need to be improved.

Bibliography “Blood Glucose Monitors: What Factors Affect Accuracy?”, Mayo Clinic website, http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/blood-glucose- monitors/AN02037 “Blood Sugar Meters May Not Be Accurate”, Orlando Sentinel, 1/17/11 “Instructions” for use with One Touch Ultra Blue Test Strips, LifeScan (no date given)

Acknowledgments I want to thank my mom for giving me the idea. I want to thank my dad for helping me with the graphs.