Why 3 girls are looking forward to losing their hair. Life is full of opportunities.

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Three good friends of mine are doing something most girls can't even imagine.

They're shaving their hair for the leukemia foundation. 
They're all budding doctors like me.

And yes, you read right.

They ARE ALL GIRLS!

These girls are sacrificing a lot. You may think that as a guy, I can't relate. But I do know first hand how hard losing your looks can affect someone, especially their self confidence.

After multiple rounds of chemotherapy, and 2 bone marrow transplants I started hating how I looked, how I felt and the fact I wasn't normal anymore.

But I managed to get past that. I saw another way of looking at things, and have become the happiest person I can because of it.

I no longer have to rely on my looks, my clothes or my achievements to be happy in life.

And I thought, what better way to help, and thank them than to make them become the most confident happy version of themselves. And I hope this message, that I sent to all three of them, helps you too.

You can help them along in their cause by sending them messages of support and helping them reach their goals by clicking their links below. Their stories, and the reasons why they're doing this are all very touching and makes me proud to call them my friends.

Encourage Lana in her quest to honour her father's memoryhere.

Encourage Aimee and Nadeen as they rally for friends, family, and in Amy'scase, for her own journey through cancer here.

Aimee/Nadeen's Facebook Event.

Lana's Facebook Event.

Losing your hair is an opportunity.

My message to these girls:

"When I found out I had cancer, I was down in the dumps. After a while of that though, I took a step back, looked at what I was doing and resolved to see everything that had happened and was going to happen in the most positive way possible - to make sure I'd stay as happy, and healthy, going forward with my treatment.

When I got told I had chemotherapy in the next few days, it was hard for me to see anything but pain and angst in my future - not only for fear of physical pain, but in the damage to my emotions and looks too.

But after a while, I again took a step back and decided to look at it another way.

Instead of seeing my chemo as something that'd bring pain, bad looks and possible death, I decided to look at it as what it was.

THE MEDICINE THAT WOULD MAKE ME BETTER.

There's a huge difference between the two. The difference between resigning yourself to death and going in fighting, with a smile on your face.

Well, you guys don't have to face the whole death thing like I did haha.

But you will lose your looks, and, though I was more beautiful than all of you put together and thus had more to lose (obvious exaggeration there), you guys may find it harder to deal with than me.

I turned that self doubt into something that's made me so supremely self confident. And I'm gonna show you how you can do that too.

When I came out of hospital I was losing hair, on medications which made me look fat, changed my skin and deformed me to looking like someone else, I started doubting myself, more than any teenage shyness/social anxiety ever could.

I now see, looking back, that I was stopping myself from doing what I wanted, from being happy. And I was even endangering my health because of that. I stopped going out, stopped exercising, went out of my way to stay inside all because of what people may have been thinking about my looks.

I didn't even do that consciously. I wasn't always depressed about how I looked, I was using my health and bad looks as an excuse to not want to do anything.

But after a while of this, again I took a step back and looked at what I was doing. And I resolved to look at life another, most constructive way. What I resolved to do was simple. I told myself not to worry about what people MAY have been thinking about me and instead worry about how I could make myself, and those I cared about happy.

Today when I walk down the street, even with my skin the way it is, hair all weird, fat deposited in weird places all around my body due to Cushing's disease - Even though I don't look even a tenth of how good I had before all of this all - I can smile and laugh at everyone and everything on the way.

Now for you guys, the shave coming may seem hard and scary. But I know you guys can do what I did.

Instead of dreading the day you cut your hair, look at it as an opportunity.

Not only will you gain first hand experience of what it's like to be a patient, which will help you relate and help more people in your careers as awesome doctors, you will also become the most confident, happy version of yourself in the process.

There's a huge difference between going into it scared and coming out afraid to look in the mirror, and looking at it as something that will make you the strongest, most happy person you can be.

And be sure that by the time you guys do the shave, making thousands in donations along the way, I'll make sure each and every one of you will be sitting on that chair with a smile on your face."

My message to them on FaceBook

************************

I hope this message inspires everyone reading this to look at their challenges in life as an opportunity - because that's how you can be the happiest, most successful version of yourselves. 

For me - I looked at my chemotherapy as what it was, a medicine, rather than a death sentence.

For these girls - I've inspired them to see the World's Greatest Shave as something that will inspire and build their self-confidence, rather than something that'll make them sweat at night.

For others going through a similar experience --> I hope this helps you to be as happy and positive going forward in your journey. If you're a cancer survivor who's also about to lose your hair, or go through pain, really take this message to heart. Because going into it all, looking at it as an opportunity, rather than something you can't lose will not only make it bearable - it'll make you STRONGER!

For everyone else reading this:

--> Next time you have a job interview, look at it as a chance to showcase your prowess and skills, something to gain rather than something you can't blow.

--> Next time you're taking that final shot in a game, look at it as a chance to help your team win, or a chance to show off your hard work rather than a way to fail yet again.

--> Next time you're sitting an exam you aren't confident about, walk in with a smile on your face, looking to pick up every mark possible rather than panicking, fretting and forgetting half the things in the exam room.

If you can take a step back, and see the positive way of looking at things, you'll be the happiest person you can be.

Because everything in life is an opportunity.

And once you see that, only YOU can stop yourself from grabbing them.

These girls doing the shave have all messaged me back, and I've been surprised by their bravery, their determination, and mostly, by the fact that they all are sincerely doing their best to raise money for a better tomorrow for millions suffering with blood cancers everyday.

They're still scared of what's to come, but this message has seriously helped them to see another way of looking at things and hopefully, when it comes time to shave, they'll be happy for what they've done.

But they do need support. Please, do send them a message by clicking the links below. It only takes a second of your time, but it'll help these girls on their quest to help others. 
And if you can spare some change - you can donate to them too on that page.

Lana's World's Greatest Shave Page:

Nadeen/Amy's World's Greatest Shave Page:

Nadeen/Amy's Facebook Event:
Lana's Facebook Event:

 

Aimee and Nadeen

                                                                       Lana

The worst mistake a man can make... Humour in Hospital #5

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                               Last #HIH:                                                    Next #HIH:

I have to get regular bone marrow biopsies every few months as a leukemia patient. 

As the name suggests, it's a VERY painful procedure. But I only found out late last year that I could actually get sedation for it as an outpatient too with the aid of a wonderful drug called methoxyflurane.

Methoxyflurane, also known as the 'green whistle', is easy to dispense, has powerful analgesic effects well below full doses and has little toxicity to boot, making it an ideal substitute for anesthesia in small procedures or emergency situations. 

It also gets you high as f*ck. 

When I first used it, my doctor mimed out the best way for me to hold and inhale it. 
I was dubious at first, I wanted the full blown, heavy duty stuff if I was getting a needle through my hipbone... not some cheaper, less effective crap. 

For some reason, she refused to handle the actual whistle adamantly. I read the box, it said, "Do not inhale if you are, or may be pregnant." That must have been why, I figured, as I began to take deep breaths and the world began to move ever... so.... slowly...

My parents told me that among other things, while I was going under I kept asking repatitively,

"When's the baby due?"

"Is it a boy or a girl?" 

"Have you picked out names?"

Well... I found out recently that she'd never been pregnant. 

It didn't help that I kept insisting that "YOU MUST BE NOW!" next time either...

Maybe that's why that biopsy hurt more than the others...

I guess I've learnt my lesson...

How did you find out you had cancer? QandA #2.

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A good friend asked me this not too long ago. This is his question and my response.

Q: "Man that would have been some scary shit when the doctor said you probably had leukemia... How did it make you feel?"

A:                                                   

It WAS scary bro. 

My parents were in denial but my initial reaction was more like- damn... that makes sense. 

A few days before fining out, I was reading up on leukemia for a family member who had it and stayed with us for his bone marrow transplant. It was a huge reason for why I wanted to do medicine and I realised I knew nothing about the condition. 

I had an infection, something in the chest, the week before. It was because my white blood cells, in essence my entire immune system, was non-existent. But at the time, I just thought it was something antibiotics would fix. 

When it didn't go away, my Aunt and Uncle, who were doctors, told me to get a blood test done. 

So I did it. 

I can still remember sitting in my backyard, on a reclining chair, stroking my dog's fur when Dad told me the doctor wanted me to go into emergency. 

Straight away. 

I could feel something was wrong. I'd known something was up for months. My legs would feeling dead only minutes into training sessions, even though I would train 3 hours a day. I'd had 3 or 4 hour-long nosebleeds in the past month or two. I was sleeping thirteen, fourteen, fifteen hours a day.

So I spent as long as I could, sitting in that chair, Bonza curled up beside me.

Then we went into hospital. I was confused, but mostly tired. 
The nurse who triaged me seemed very nice... so kind and caring. She kept comforting me as she cannulated me, putting on some numbing cream as she did so, even though another nurse jokingly told her that I wasn't a kid, that I could take the pain...

I remember hearing that nurse in the background say dolefully, "Really? But he's only seventeen..." as I was wheeled away into my room next door.

I read a book named "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" in primary school, about a Japanese girl who had leukemia in the aftermath of Hiroshima, and somehow I remembered 'bone marrow failure' was something that was mentioned in that. 

When I saw that written on my chart, I asked dad 
"Does that mean luekemia?" 

He looked me dead in the eyes, and said, "No."
His eyes were haunted... I now realise that that question made him think about that uncle who had leukemia, and the shit he went through.

The ER doctor came and broke the news that it was exactly that. Leukemia.

My parents were in denial. At first, I took it stoically. 
But then I got scared and went into denial too. 

I looked at all the other possibilities - some vitamin K deficiency or B12 deficiency... could explain the low blood counts. The nose bleeds - maybe due to air conditioning causing different pressures or something like that. The tiredness? Well... I was going through year 12... wasn't that normal?

The next day I had my biopsy done. 

My denial, my hope that it could be anything else, was shattered with those words.

'The good news is you're 17 and you have leukemia. But the bad news is, you're 17 and you have leukemia.'

I got past that though. I realised I had a second way of looking at things. And I'm still here today. Happier and more satisfied than ever.

It felt good writing that."

And it feels good reliving that conversation with my friend too. 

Cancer made me realise that that idea applies to everything in life. 
You will ALWAYS have a second, more positive, more happy way of looking at ANY problem in life. 
And when you can see that different perspective, and live it, you will be happy in life. And I'll live by that for the rest of my life. 

It's me, my brain, only I that determines how I feel. 
Even in times of pain, even when everything seems to be against you, only you can choose to be happy. And it's only you that makes you feel sad. 

And I really hope I can make anyone reading this see that. 

You can read more about my story by clicking here.
Read about how I beat depression here.  
And click here to see why I think cancer has made me the happiest person I am. 
It's  made me someone who doesn't worry about what others are thinking about me, something that a lot of people do and don't even realise it.

And if you need any help in getting over some issue, some crisis in life, whether it be medical, emotional or just you not being happy about anything, feel free to contact me, like hundreds of friends family and strangers alike have already done, and I'll try my best. 

Either here, where you can even comment anonymously.
Or on my Facebook page.
Or by emailing me at nikhilthegrizzlybear@gmail.com

Why Anti-Vaccination Campaigns And Organisations ARE A FRAUD.

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Anti-vaccination groups have pushed a scare campaign on the public for years now, claiming that vaccines harm, not help kids.

I was astounded to learn that the whole thing that started this whole scare campaign was a fraud. It's in this video. Have a look. 

To put it simply, this whole idea that vaccinations are bad started in 1998, after a paper released on 8 kids that developed autism after having the measles vaccination. But the fact was, that 8/12 of those kids had another disease at the time.

In truth, after multiple studies, ranging from 5,000 to as many as 5 MILLION kids - no link could between the two could be found, and later on it was discovered that the article all this fuss was based upon was based on completely falsified data... those 12 kids were HIRED by an ANTI-VACCINATION GROUP and NONE OF THEM, yet alone 8/12, EVEN HAD AUTISM.

Of those who wrote the original article, 11/12 have retracted their statement - which never happens in medical articles before. Only 1, the person who wrote the initial article, a person who makes millions off this campaign, a person who had his medical licence revoked prior to this article being written, still backs his claim.

At the time of publishing this paper, which has been confirmed to be fraudulent, Wakefield himself submitted a business prospectus for a new autism testing kit (of a strain of autism that he actually created) which he proposed would earn him $44 million A YEAR!

It's stupid.
It's FRAUD

But the idea of not vaccinating still goes strong.

And it's already killed millions. 

Prior to that vaccinations were seen as a godsend. Probably because before that we actually had children dying in large numbers in front of us, unlike the thousands who die every year without having an organisation that makes MILLIONS in donations behind them, due to their kids, or other kids, NOT BEING VACCINATED.

The question comes to mind.

Why do people not know this information??

Well it's either: 

1) Anti-vac campaigns and groups, though they may have arisen from actual concern, are now powerful. They keep providing funding to enhance their agenda, making people think those who support them are doing good, when in truth they're unknowingly being led by people who know this information to KILL thousands of dollars a year. 
Now they, either by accident or, more likely, purposefully, have created a whole conspiracy theory around the idea that the government is trying to cover something up or make people sick on purpose. They invest millions into this and are probably making millions off it too... while 30,000 adults in America, a developed nation, die of diseases that would never had affected them had they been vaccinated.

OR

2) There is not enough conversation between scientists and laymen about why things are necessary and what different studies mean (or the studies don't get publicised enough) because doctors/scientists don't communicate well enough with the wider public and the public can't get access of easy to process information.

Likely, it's a combination of both.

The question now becomes:

How do we fix it?

Well, to stop the anti-vac campaigns, we need to raise awareness. 
Make videos like this, blog posts like mine that expose these campaigns as the frauds they are go viral to the people who don't know better and the people who question the necessity.

To do this, we need to EDUCATE PEOPLE on why vaccinations are necessary. What the REAL side effects and chances of those happening are.
And we have to communicate this information to the public, with as little jargon as possible, at levels that ANYONE WHO CAN READ CAN UNDERSTAND.

Vaccinations are why we, in the developed world, don't have to worry about diseases like polio, smallpox and measles. 2 of those 3 still plague the developing world, by the way, and kill MILLIONS of people, a lot of them kids, every year. 
To make sure they're effective, a certain percentage of the entire population needs to be vaccinated. This level, which we call "herd immunity" will ensure that the population can't spread the disease that's being vaccinated against easily. The number varies among different diseases depending on how easily it spreads and other factors, but for the flu vaccine in Australia this year, that number was 95%.

And if you're skeptical about the effectiveness of these programs, a few of these stats should indicate how important they are. 

Reduction in vaccine preventable diseases after 5 years of vaccination in Croatia:

Bernard Keich, "Impact of Vaccination on Vaccine Preventable Disease in Croatia", Periodicum Biologorum Vol 114, No 2, 141 - 147

So they are necessary. And you can see from that video and my data above, they DON'T cause autism, like some groups would have you believe. 
They do have side effects in some patients (less than 1%), but most of them are minor, and they save more than they harm. 

Without them, we'd still have millions of people, most of them KIDS dying every year.

Millions of kids die every year in the developing world from diseases that could have been vaccinated against. 

We are privileged to not have our kids torn away from us. 

But this may soon be changing... with incidences occuring more and more in developed countries due to the influences of the Anti-Vac movement. 

You and I can stop this trend where it stands.

If We Vaccinate Our Kids. 

You can do your part by sharing that video, or this blog post with those less aware than you so that you can save your kids' lives, as well as THEIR KIDS' LIVES.

My facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/musingsofamedstudentpatient


An addition to the original post - A guide to educating those who think vaccinating isn't safe:

One question to pose to all anti-vaccers next time you debate them - what's the harm of vaccinating? The only evidence of it having some conceivable harm was the fraudulent Wakefield studies shown above. No heavy metals are added to vaccines any more by law, indeed, they never exceeded the amount you get in a serve of tuna.

Common Arguments They Make. Why they're wrong:

They often argue "It's good to have some diseases early in life!" - remind them that a vaccine works on that same principle. Except instead of giving you one that can leave you sterile, brain damaged or dead, it gives you a weaker/dead version of the disease so that your immune system is prepped for later encounters with disease. 

"They don't work in all people!" That's true - they don't always cause the intended effect, and vaccinated people can still get sick. However, if enough people in a population are vaccinated (and evenly so) the disease can't spread in the first place, so everyone's gotta do it for it to be effective. Many people (pregnant ladies and immunocompromised people for eg) can't get them - so you're protecting not only yourself and your kids, but also them. That's the concept of herd immunity!

Do Women Deserve More Funding In Health? No. <-- Q&A #1

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Women DON'T deserve more funding in health 
just because they're women.

In terms of funding and treatment in the developed world, women are being looked after just as much, if not, more than men.

But that doesn't mean we ignore the obvious. Men and women are different, and have different bodies, which work differently.

Treating them as separate in terms of treatment and research only makes sense.

But we shouldn't do this just because they're women. 

In this video, Pauline Johnson lays out her "mission" to figure out "why these sex differences occur and use that knowledge to improve the health of women."
We should recognise genders in medicine because it will only lead to better treatments for everyone.

 Pauline Johnson suggests that when looking at health, women should be looked after more.

She frames the whole speech is to make it an issue of women's health and appeals to a feministic agenda that way. She asserts that women should get treated differently to men, and that they deserve a larger chunk of the pot when it comes to medical research and treatments.

Had she framed this argument differently, i.e. scientifically, she would have got her point across to more people, and made her talk more convincing, rather than alienating a large chunk of her audience. 

(The like to dislike ratio at the time I wrote this was about 3:2 - very low for this channel)

Because acknowledging the difference in gender in clinical settings and in drug trials would lead to better treatments for women AND men - it would help more people stay healthy. Period (no pun intended).

It's important to note that the data she presents, as it is with any opinion piece, can be misleading. She's either doing it purposefully to illustrate and convince her audience or she's being blinded by her feministic stand on health.

For example, she uses a statistic that "66% of mice brain studies were on male mice or those whose gender were unspecified" and suggests that this means that women are being neglected in research.

This statement is flawed as we don't know how many studies actually specify gender. All we know is that 34% are specified as female in gender. It's very possible that a lower percentage were specified as male. 

So take some of what she says with a grain of salt. 

However, she makes some vital points on the healthcare for ALL people. There ARE huge differences between men and women. Not so much in the major, non sexual organ tissues/cells like the heart and lungs as she suggests when she says all cells are different, but in the hormones that run around and affect the functioning of the normal and diseased body (which are different in men and women). 

Her idea that we treat and research differently between genders is very valid on heart healthcare. 

Men comprise about 60% of heart patients, but women have a worse prognosis. Is it because they're being neglected? Possibly, but it's not because only men are being studied, as she suggests, but because in clinical trials and hospital situations, GENDER IS NOT ALWAYS ACKNOWLEDGED or taken into account when analysing data.

There is a huge difference in the two.

Over the last few decades, researchers and doctors have begun to see the importance of gender in hospitals.

In a study done on this issue - heart health, linked below - it was found that there is a trend in men of getting higher levels of LDL cholesterol (the bad version of cholesterol) in the third and fourth decades. This suggest there may be some physical or social aspects that aren't considered by doctors or in trials in the case of men, and that these should be addressed more in patients in that category. 

Eventually though, in the 5th decade, women suffer from higher proportions of LDL:HDL due to the post menopause period, as HDL (the good form of cholesterol) levels drop, meaning there is a higher percentage of LDLs left in the body. That same study suggests using HDL levels (or proportion of HDL:LDL) and the amount of fat circulating in the blood as a more accurate form of diagnosis in women [1].

There you can see that acknowledging differences in men and women when doing and analysing medical trials helps the treatment outcomes of BOTH WOMEN AND MEN. 

And noting the differences will only lead to more research being done more efficiently which can help EVERYONE.
Not just women as Pauline Johnson suggests.

You may see that in the case of heart health, this study alone shows the necessity to invest more and do more studies on the diet/drinking/smoking patterns (and other risk factors of heart disease) in  30s - 40 year old men, and more should be done on the effects of menopause on heart health for women.

Thus studying these differences, and noting gender in clinical trials IS a completely sound suggestion that should be taken on board.

In the case of depression, Johnson makes a point that 70% of people diagnosed with depression are female. But on studies of symptoms done on 5600 people (60% of those tested were female by the way), men and women were shown to have near equal rates of depression symptoms [2]. 

This suggests that men don't seek help for cases like this, and are under-diagnosed more than that women are neglected. 

HOWEVER, despite this, Johnson's suggestion that women be studied differently to men, due to their differing brain functioning, is a very good idea as the TREATMENT of this diagnosis can be very different.

Looking forward on how this data can help improve the medical system, it becomes clear that more funding needs to be done on making men more aware or willing to come out and seek help for depression, and more funding needs to be diverted on the effects of the mood centre (and hormones associated with that section) of the brain in women in terms of treatment. 

Again, acknowledging the difference in genders will help improve treatment and health research for men AND women.

I haven't done too much endocrinology yet in med school, so I don't know for sure what the differences between male and women are exactly (other than the obvious that I've discovered on my own =P), but the idea that we acknowledge these differences when we research, trial and treat is VERY GOOD and will only end up saving more lives..

And her suggestion that we can make a change by asking our doctors if there is a difference in treatments for men and women is also excellent. Because guess what, this video made me look up the differences in these diseases alone, and has made me (and hopefully the med students who read my posts), as a future doctor and concerned member of society, aware of this difference which hasn't been considered as much in health to date. 

Had she should have framed it as an issue of science and medicine rather than one of gender inequality, more people would be inclined to do that research too.

By the way - this will be the start of a new series - Q&A.
I got messaged this video on FaceBook and asked for a comment on it, and this (with some reworking and slight editing) was my answer. 
This "series", if you will, is not going to be as well worded and written as carefully as my other more inspiring posts, but I'll try and keep it good. 

Comment or message me anything you find interesting in terms of my treatment, how I view life after cancer after cancer or on interesting things you may have seen on the news or the internet, and I'll try and respond as soon as possible. 

You can find me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/musingsofamedstudentpatient

Blogger (here of course)

G+ : https://plus.google.com/104976608723040848384/posts 

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRPCS7UXLOY

Sources:

(1) http://cardiovascres.oxfordjournals.org/content/53/3/538.full

(2) http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265358.php

It should be noted that there are huge inequalities in women's health in the developing world for political and social reasons - not for lack of research or investment in treatment as she suggested.
And also - this obviously doesn't concern reproductive health, which is completely different... 
well... for most people that is.

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How Cancer Was The Best Thing To Happen To Me

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A New Way Of Viewing Diabetes Treatment

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Google Glass is a technology that can only be described as futuristic. 

You can literally check your FaceBook, where you can like my page (I was told to be more subtle in my self promotion... let me know if that was good), browse the net, look at your schedule and take awesome point of view videos without a computer or handheld device!

But it's not exactly Dolce and Gabbana... 

What if I was to tell you that Google is refining this idea and putting all this technology into a contact lens... 

Cool right? 

What I find coolest about this is their business model. 

Not only are they making it possible to check your emails on a boring date, they're also using the idea to help people. 

And making billions off it too.

Tears have a potential for showing accurate blood glucose (sugar) levels. But you can't really get diabetes patients, who need to check their levels every 24 hours, to have a good cry on a daily basis, right? 

Well Google is planning to put an end to the daily near blood test Diabetes sufferers have to put up with.

Ouch.

They've released a press statement from their most innovative R&D department, GoogleX, stating their intent to develop this contact lens to monitor blood glucose levels. They plan to use LED lights on their billion dollar baby to alert patients (and their doctors) when the glucose levels have "crossed above or below certain thresholds," making life much easier for patients who suffer from heart disease, kidney failure and liver disease that ultimately end the lives of soon to be number 1 killer in Australia.

Diabetes affects 380 million people.

That's 1/20 people. 

Worldwide.

That number will double by 2030. 

And, on average, for type 2 diabetes (90% of cases), you have the it for 7 years before you even have it diagnosed. So there's probably a lot more people suffering from it than we think.

Google helps people with this invention and stands to make 10% of the world need their product. And on top of that, it's pretty damn cool.

This is brilliant. 

But what are other benefits that this technology could bring? 

Not only is this invention helping sufferers of this disease who potentially get near fatal blood sugar level dips and rises from things like eating and exercising, it can also lead to advancements in controlling and maybe even curing diabetes. 

Emergency situations where insulin is needed quickly can be mitigated with something that constantly monitors your glucose levels. This can save the lives and limbs (literally) of the nearly half billion already suffering from disease. 

And with this disease, it often takes patients years of blood testing, dieting and dosage testing (where you literally use yourself as a guinea pig)  to find an optimum blood glucose level they can maintain. 
This has the potential to reduce that time to minutes. 

But the biggest potential of this technology, which can read your glucose levels in a second, lies in the ability to test the effectiveness of new drugs and the impacts of diet in a heartbeat. This will save HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS in drug development, making drug investment a less risky and costly investment than it is today. 

This will lead to more drugs being discovered (and not only those helping diabetes patients by the way) quicker. And it will also allow us to test the effectiveness of dieting options more reliably too - because, especially in chronic diseases like this, drugs are not always the best option.

Diabetes is not the only thing this can help.

Your eyeballs aren't just limited to revealing your blood sugar levels. There are possibilities this could be expanded further. 

Your eyes can also be potentially used to monitor heart rate, and maybe even blood pressure, which can help in emergency hospital situations and in chronic sufferers of heart failure and other such diseases much less intrusively, and restrictively, than the blood pressure cuffs and manual pulse taking we are forced to use today. 

And if this kind of technology can be developed to monitor your circulatory system, that is, your blood, you can also test the effectiveness of all drugs without having to take blood tests every day, again saving millions, scratch that, billions in the drug development process.
There will be a blog post about ideas to help drug development too by the way! And soon too. 

Of course, you can easily monitor eye movement and blinking with this kind of technology, which will help millions of people suffering from sleep apnoea (lack of sleep that often goes hand in hand with obesity and being overweight, affecting 50% of the developed world's population) and the probably billion or so who can't get a good nights sleep too!

And on top of that, you can still use this to subscribe to my blog (by email, on the right hand side) and like my FaceBook page too. How's that for subtlety?

https://www.facebook.com/musingsofamedstudentpatient

This technology is not here yet. The model shown above is only a prototype. But with billions of people who'd possibly benefit from it, I'm pretty sure it'll be here soon.