The bad news is that diabetes cannot be cured yet. The good news is that scientists and researchers are still looking for a cure.

Another piece of good news is that blood glucose test meters are getting better all the time, and that insurance companies now recognize the value of home testing and are willing to subsidize the cost.

The first glucose test meter wasn’t invented until 1962. It was invented by Clark and Lyons at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Diabetics could not test their own blood glucose at home. They had to rely on nothing more than diet, exercise, and medication and hope for the best. And that first crude glucose meter didn’t change that situation.

In American hospitals in the 1970s, another glucose meter was introduced, called the Ames Reflectance Meter. It had been invented by Anton H. Clemen. The Ames Reflectance Meter was a device that was about 10 inches long, and it had to be connected to an electrical outlet. There was a needle that moved and indicated the blood glucose level. It took about one minute. Testing still wasn’t available for diabetics to use at home.

It wasn’t until about 1980 that the first home glucose-testing meters were marketed in America. Those first meters weren’t all that accurate, but they got better and better. The insurance companies resisted paying for home testing equipment, but as the meters improved and it was proved that home testing worked, the insurance companies relented.

Home glucose testing meters were approved for use by Type 1 diabetics in the 1980s but they were not approved for use by Type 2 diabetics until several years later. Even today, many Type 2 diabetics are not instructed on the use of a blood glucose meter.