Bayer voluntarily recalled its Contour test strips, used with its Contour TS blood glucose metre, in the United States, Mexico, Austria, Turkey and India this week because it gave a false positive reading by up to 17 per cent higher.

Although the test strips are not marketed to the UAE, there is a risk that some residents have the test strips due to the large expatriate population.

Dr Maha Taysir Barakat, medical and research director at the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi, told Gulf News a false positive blood glucose reading could cause patients to lower their blood sugar by too much.

"Seventeen per cent is a bit too high. The risk is that they would end up taking more treatment," she said.

The effects of low blood sugar, or hypoglycaemia, include dizziness, tiredness, irregular heart beat and seizure.

She said there was no fear of diabetics in the UAE overdosing on anti-diabetic drugs from a false reading.

"Patients here are not educated or allowed to increase or lower their dosage according to their blood glucose readings, unlike other countries," she said, adding self-testing kits were not accurate measures of blood sugar levels.

"You take the test three times and you will get three readings. It will never be as accurate as laboratory blood tests."

She advised that patients who used the affected test strips must talk to their pharmacists.

The UAE has the second highest prevalence of diabetes in the world, affecting 20 per cent of the population, blamed on high-fat and high-sugar diet, sedentary lifestyle and genetic factors.

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