The Future of Diabetes Management: 8 Reasons Why We Face Extraordinary Times!

Around 400 million patients have diabetes worldwide according to estimations. And over the last few years, diabetes management has been improving but due to the new technologies and devices coming to the market very soon, the whole management of diabetes will significantly change in the coming years. Let me show you some examples how.

Digital Contact Lenses

Google has an augmented reality glass called the Google Glass which they just stopped developing, but they also patented a digital contact lens through which we can get more information from the digital world plus it can measure blood glucose levels from tears as an added benefit. Google launched a partnership with the pharmaceutical company Novartis to develop these smart contact lenses that can track diabetes and fix farsightedness as well.

Gamification

There are amazing applications for smartphones that can help you manage diabetes efficiently. MySugr, an Austrian company, released several applications that can add a little bit of gamification to the traditional diabetes management apps. The company also developed the mySugr Junior App designed for kids to learn how to manage diabetes properly. It also enables parents to keep control over the therapy when they are not around the kid. The app looks like a game in which the children get points for every entry and the goal is to score a particular amount of points every single day.

Patient empowerment with big data

Databetes helps patients better manage their diabetes by providing a good way for logging and measuring data, as well as a revolutionary concept to analyze the big data behind one person's disease. Patients can support each other through social media channels and become coaches for each other. Look at sixuntilme.com for best practice examples.

Bionic pancreas

There is artificial pancreas which means that it’s a closed-loop insulin delivery system. The device can measure blood glucose levels constantly and decide upon the insulin delivery itself. Engineers from Boston University have developed a bionic pancreas system that uses continuous glucose monitoring along with subcutaneous delivery of both rapid-acting insulin and glucagon as directed by a computer algorithm.

Food scanners

TellSpec, a Canadian company is coming up with a food scanner this year which by scanning your food can tell you how many and what kind of ingredients, how many allergens, toxins, how many carbohydrates you actually have in the food you are about to eat.

Pocket-sized gadgets

When you live with diabetes, you get used to carting around with plenty of things such as meters, test strips, lancing devices, and so on therefore a pocket-sized gadget can change this called Dario that also comes with a diabetes management system.

Wireless monitors

The medical company Abbott just released a FreeStyle Libre system which makes it possible to constantly measure blood glucose levels in a wireless way.

Digital tattoos

Here is a digital tattoo that can measure glucose levels by using electric current to attract glucose to the surface of the skin. The proof-of-concept study was just published and it’s time to bring the era of wireless diabetes management to patients.

So there are more and more technologies that can help people manage diabetes properly besides potentially future therapies such as new drugs or islet cell transplantation but it’s really time to manage diabetes in a gamified and comfortable way and I believe that the best gadgets and the best technological solutions are just yet to come.

Please share your experience and thoughts on this!

Further reading:

• Future Meters & Monitors
• 10 Technologies Changing Diabetes Care
• What is the future for diabetes treatment?