Non-invasive blood component value measuring instrument and method

Abstract

A non-invasive blood constituents measuring instrument measures blood constituent values including blood glucose concentration in a living body. The instrument is composed of a light source 11 to irradiate a light containing plural wavelengths to a living body 13, a light detector 14 to detect the light transmitted through a living body or reflected thereon, an instantaneous spectrum analyzer 15 to analyze the light transmitted through the living body or reflected thereon at different times, a subtraction processor 18 to generate spectrum subtraction from the spectrum of the light at the different times measured by the spectrum analyzer 15, and a blood glucose concentration predictor 21 into which the output data of the subtraction processor 18 are input and which outputs a blood constituent value.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to an instrument and a method for measuring blood biochemical constituent including blood glucose concentration and, more particularly, to a non-invasive blood constituent measuring instrument and a method for measuring blood glucose concentration without sampling blood from a living body. [0002] In the modern era of the expanding aged society as well as the change in life-style, there has been a considerable increase in the number of diabetes which is growing social concern as a representative of lifestyle-related diseases. It is so far a general practice to measure blood glucose concentration by sampling a small amount of blood. However, it is strongly desired to reduce pain and botheration associated with the blood sampling. In addition, there is no other method available than the blood examination for measuring blood biochemical constituent. [0003] On the other hand, a non-invasive measurement using near infrared light ...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

In addition, there is no other method available than the blood examination for measuring blood biochemical constituent.

On the other hand, a non-invasive measurement using near infrared light is collecting attentions for extremely low risk to living bodies and the possibility for measurement of items so far impossible by existing measuring methods.

For this method, however, it is very difficult to estimate glucose concentration in blood from the transmitted light obtained and thus a method to estimate glucose concentration using a multi-regression analysis is also proposed.

However, the absorption band inherent to glucose in the near infrared range overlaps on other constituent absorption ranges of protein materials, etc. and it is difficult to separate an absorption characteristic coming from glucose only and absorption characteristic of other material and therefore, there is a question in measuring accuracy and reproducibility of measurement and the proposed method is not yet put in practical use.

In a non-invasive blood glucose concentration measuring method using a conventional absorption analysis method, the glucose absorption band overlaps the absorption ranges of other biological tissues in living bodies such as bones, veins, muscles and it is difficult to separate the ranges and the accurate measurement is not feasible and is therefore not put in practical use.

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