New B12 test - Martyn's Blog

[fbirder]

There's a new test for blood levels of B12 - that runs on a mobile phone with a drop of blood

martynhooper.com/2016/07/15...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/273...

[fbirder]

Comments after a quick read...

It's not going to be a home test for a long while. It requires additional reagents.And the response of a batch of strips needs to be calibrated with solutions of known strength. But it is something that a doctor could do themselves.

It's not quite sensitive enough now. Improvements are expected (although it may prompt doctors to raise the lower limit of 'normal' to 348 pmol/L - the current limit of the assay).

It sounds like it's not going to suffer interference from IF like the old assays did.

[helvella in reply to fbirder]

The key question is probably how much it will cost.

In the context of a doctor's office, I am struggling to see any advantage of a mobile phone providing processing power to a standard PC - which most doctors have.

Also, quoting a "less than 15 minutes" suggest problem when we all seem to have 10 minute (max.) appointments.

[Lisahelen]

If this was usable by us sufferers it would help enormously as a guide to how and when we should treat, without the fear of 'overdosing!'

[Gambit62 Administrator in reply to Lisahelen]

very drole

[Lisahelen in reply to Gambit62]

The reason i put overdosing is because it seems that every medical person i have come into contact with says about it. My dietician this week!

[Gambit62 Administrator in reply to Lisahelen]

yes, amazing how much hooey is out there amongst the (witch)doctors.

Given that it is what is going on at the cell level that really counts not sure that any home monitoring is actually going to be of use to most people. Guess the medics can't really get their heads around the possibility that that there are things that don't actually have a range in which things are good ...

[fbirder]

WTF had this cut 'n' paste stuff got yo do with the original post?