The Development of Self-monitoring of Blood Glucose

Urine Glucose Measurement Early qualitative urine glucose testing was later followed by the development of semi-quantitative urine glucose measurement, first available for home use in the 1940s. This technique gave only a retrospective estimate of glycemic control over the preceding one to two days and even then only if control was poor, with the resultant blood glucose levels exceeding the renal threshold (~200mg/dl), resulting in glycosuria. Such information might have allowed the patient to avoid those circumstances in the future, but would do little to reinforce and encourage those practices that resulted in good glycemic control. Thus, diabetes care during this period was, by necessity, centered on the ‘avoidance of the bad’, rather than the promulgation and empowering potential of striving for ‘good or ideal control’.