092622_GYS_2022_ONLINE

GU I D E to Y E L L OW S P R I NG S | 2O22 – 2O23 41 Keeping track of blood sugar levels can be a matter of life or death for a diabetic. For the hundreds of millions of people around the world living with diabetes, entire lifestyles and diets are tailored to the demands of the disease — insulin pokes and regular monitoring of glucose levels are just a part of everyday life. Most diabetics opt to manage their disease at home, usually with the help of com- mercial blood sugar testing kits. A prick of the finger and a meter will read out your cur- rent blood sugar level. But do these little machines provide diabetics with all the information they need to know? Are they accurate and precise enough with their glucose readings? These were the questions a team of engineers and developers at Yellow Springs Instruments, or YSI, — now owned by parent company, Xylem — wrestled with back in the late ’60s. This mechani - cally minded group of local problem solvers set out to build a device that could effi - ciently record glucose levels with precision unmatched by any of the other devices on the market. And in less than a decade, they built just that. YSI’s new device could measure glucose within 2% of the targeted range. This was Model 23A. “It was just beautiful,” project manager and longtime villager Alan Brunsman said in an interview with the News. “Model 23A worked exactly as it should have.” “Even then, we knew how important it was to a dia- betic to know exactly what their [blood sugar] level is,” Brunsman said. “You’d like it YSI’s Model 23A— A REVOLUTION IN MEASURING By REILLY DIXON From August 2021 ▲ Alan Brunsman in his Yellow Springs home, holding a Model 23A, a precision blood glucose level measuring device invented at YSI, Inc. P H O T O : R E I L L Y D I X O N little F airy G arden 224 Xenia Ave. in Kings Yard r Fairy Garden Workshops r Fairy Garden Supplies r Plants r Fairy Art r Unique Gifts 937-319-0590 www. l ittlefairygarden.com J e w e l r y Cloth ing art s and C r a f t s 220 Xenia avenue K i ngs yard 9 3 7 - 767- 1 918 www.tibet-bazaar.Com from t i b e t nepal and india