The Food and Drug Administration Friday issued a public health notification regarding certain glucose monitoring strips.

It said that healthcare practitioners should not use GDH-PQQ (glucose dehydrogenase pyrroloquinoline quinine ) test strips on patients receiving therapeutic products containing non-glucose sugars. These sugars can falsely elevate glucose results, which may mask hypoglycemia or prompt excessive insulin administration, leading to a serious injury or death, the FDA said. Patients with serious medical conditions, including kidney failure and rheumatoid arthritis are most likely to use these therapies. Diabetics use glucose monitoring strips to test their blood sugar levels.

Other glucose test strips do not react harmfully with the non-glucose sugars, the FDA noted. The unaffected methods are glucose oxidase, glucose dehydrogenase nicotine adenine dinucleotide (GDH-NAD) or glucose dehydrogenase flavin adenine dinucleotide (GDH-FAD).

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