The scourge that is diabetes continues to ravage lives and economies worldwide. As of 2015, an estimated 8.3 percent of the population – 415 million people – had the disease, which is killing us at a rate of up to 5 million lives per year. The global economic cost of diabetes in 2014 was estimated to be $612 billion.

We need a break, and fortunately there are quite a few smart people working on the problem. Some of them, a scientific team from the Center for Nanoparticle Research at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Daejeon, Korea, have created a wearable patch that allows accurate diabetes monitoring and feedback therapy by using human sweat.

At the crux of diabetes are the high blood sugar levels, aka hyperglycemia. There is no known cure for Type 2 diabetes, and the treatment basically consists of self-testing glucose levels followed by painful insulin shots to regulate the sugar levels. Lots of jabbing, with lots of needles.

The new IBS device addresses both the testing and medicine jabs. It monitors blood sugar levels of the wearer via sweat-based and pH monitors, and delivers the insulin transcutaneously through temperature-responsive microneedles.

According to Kim Dae-Hyeong, a scientist from the Center for Nanoparticle Research, “Precise measurement of sweat glucose concentrations are used to estimate the levels of glucose in the blood of a patient. The device retains its original sensitivity after multiple uses, thereby allowing for multiple treatments. The connection of the device to a portable/wireless power supply and data transmission unit enables the point-of-care treatment of diabetes.”

The device is leaps and bounds past current non-invasive treatment protocols.

The professor went on to describe how the device works, “The patch is applied to the skin where sweat-based glucose monitoring begins on sweat generation. The humidity sensor monitors the increase in relative humidity (RH). It takes an average of 15 minutes for the sweat-uptake layer of the patch to collect sweat and reach a RH over 80% at which time glucose and pH measurements are initiated.”