The Role(s) Of Glucose Sensing In Diabetes: Informative, Archival, Or Control?

Glucose sensing in diabetes mellitus potentially serves three purposes: (i) informative, (ii) archival, (iii) control. To date the vast majority of those who undertake this activity on a routine basis have done so mainly for either the informative and/or the archival or recordkeeping purposes. Surprisingly few use the data for modifying insulin or drug therapy. This paper discusses glucose sensing in the context of the abandoned past, the existing present, and the potential future technologies. Glucose sensing for control is concluded to be its most valuable role, when benefit to the user is of ultimate importance.