Terahertz Time-Domain Spectroscopy in the Assessment of Diabetic Complications

This chapter demonstrates the possibility of application of THz time-domain spectroscopy for the assessment of diabetic complications. The optical properties of human blood with the different glucose level were studied. The increasing refractive index of blood at the glucose-level growth was shown for a series of experiments. The dispersion of complex refractive index of human nails was obtained. Based on these data, the noninvasive glucose-measuring technique was proposed, which utilizes the reflection of the THz pulse from the nail plate/nail bed interface. The possibility of development of metafilm-based method for detecting glucose level in blood using THz time-domain spectroscopy was demonstrated. In addition, the influence of concentration of bilirubin, creatine, uric acid, and triglycerides on the refractive index of blood was shown.