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Apple's Noninvasive Blood Glucose Technology for Future Apple Watch Reaches 'Proof-of Concept' Stage
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I like what this news means for current makers of blood glucose monitors. Competition benefits the consumer, and this development shows these manufacturers that Apple means business.
No, even better, it was Rockley Photonics. Oh wait, they are bankrupt now.
No it’s not. We do not have robust data that this makes any difference. You can modify the glucose index of many foots by chewing more.
Your healthy body is already optimizing these things in real time far faster and better than you can on the macro level with eating. Diabetes is a pathology. Normal people manage their sugars just fine and trying to optimize them is as likely to be counter productive as helpful. Apologies to those who bought a continuous monitor off YouTube and it changed their life.
This isn't for type 1 diabetics. That would require medical device approval by FDA which Apple does not want.
This will not replace glucometers. That would require medical device approval by FDA which Apple does not want.
This is for retrospective analysis and identification of trends relating to prediabetes and type 2 diabetes time in range.
Think: Today your blood sugar was in range for 80% of the time!
Not: Right now your blood sugar is 5.6mmol
This will not replace glucometers. That would require medical device approval by FDA which Apple does not want.
This is for retrospective analysis and identification of trends relating to prediabetes and type 2 diabetes time in range.
Think: Today your blood sugar was in range for 80% of the time!
Not: Right now your blood sugar is 5.6mmol
In addition to diabetes, just think how it might've helped Steve Jobs (and others with pancreatic diseases) if he'd seen his blood sugar changing 24 months before his diagnosis and if he'd been seen a year sooner.
Definitely a game changer.
Perhaps it will be along the lines of an A1C test which can see how you are doing over the course of weeks or months.
It may even start out that way, but then be tested in things like the Apple Heart study which found it useful to detect afib and the like
I just wonder if that won't be any start and then they will have it on millions of devices and can run studies to show that it works in real time too. I presume that's the goal.
Who knows, but the FDA will require some far more stringent studies..
Read this post if you haven’t yet: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-proof-of-concept-stage.2381672/post-31986530
Assuming they can get from here to production release and fda approval; hopefully they won’t trample on any patents.
That's a triggering timeline... I've been told that a diabetes cure is 5 years away, and could assume presumptively Apple's therefore missed the mark.
But I keep hearing that '5 years away' portion for thirty years... so maybe still Apple's effort is welcome.
I'm certain whatever is developed will have quite a large MARD, and likely many generational improvements, but a welcome technology when it appears.
He was a visionary. I wouldn’t be surprised if he looked at one of his cars one day and said to himself maybe Apple should sell cars. I’m not sure how good of an idea that would be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it crossed his mind. However a watch that monitors your health is definitely a project I can see Steve getting actively involved with years ago.
Mr. Jaybear,
I think maybe you and I caught the diabetes around the same time? Pretty sure I caught it from not washing my hands after riding the L to and from work as a young man
Unfortunately, you're spot on. Seeing the trends is neat, but you can't dose insulin from that--at least it's frowned upon. And your point about the CGM data driving the pump overnight is a good one. Apple Watch would need to be able to read our BG at night too. So there you have a battery issue to deal with. My pump needs CGM data 24/7, otherwise I'd wake up feeling like hammered crud. I see the battery issue being a major part of this puzzle: how do you charge a device that is supposed to be hooked up to me 24/7? My current pump goes nuts when I'm just swapping out a battery for 5 seconds
I'd love to see some magic tech come out and amaze us all and prove me wrong, but the folk down at Dexcom, and even Medtronic, are probably a decade ahead of Apple on this, if they're even going down the non-invasive road at all. Remember the GlucoWatch Biographer from around 2005? It never proved accurate enough to tie to an insulin dose, and was usually way off of a finger prick.
Hey, if anyone can maybe pull it off, Apple can!
More useful tech means it's easier for me to stay healthy and live a normal life--very different from 30 years ago. I easily maintain an A1C today that was only a dream back then, and it's because of the tech I have now.
And the new Dexcom G7 sensor isn't much larger than an Apple watch face.
The change this will make to diabetics' lives (and early diagnosis of others).
The fact it could be here within the next 10 years is still incredibly impressive to me. Very much looking forward to the next leap in health/medical tech on the watch.
The FDA regulatory burden on medical devices is way too high for the Apple watch to provide any kind of real time information. It takes years of work to get approval for a medical device with many studies required. The Apple Watch or Phone cannot fundamentally be a medical device because there is no assurance that the other things they are doing will not impact the medical function. Medical devices tend to be low tech, with few functions, and very reliable. A watch that runs many different pieces of software, is refreshed every year, has access to the internet, and has a lot of user control is absolutely never going to be evaluated as such. It takes years for new Dexcom or Libre devices to just get clearance and approval to enter a new market - nevermind be refreshed or updated. And what insurances are going to offer reimbursements for Apple devices? None.
I am T1D and wouldn't use my Apple watch to action my insulin based on its blood sugar measurements. That's insane.
Apple isn't a medical device company. They are a health trends and insights company. There is a very specific difference here that is not clear to many laypeople. The latter is profits, the former is massive risk and liability. Apple nor its investors are interested.
I am T1D and wouldn't use my Apple watch to action my insulin based on its blood sugar measurements. That's insane.
Apple isn't a medical device company. They are a health trends and insights company. There is a very specific difference here that is not clear to many laypeople. The latter is profits, the former is massive risk and liability. Apple nor its investors are interested.
Incredible that we’re at a point now where people love this idea because Western society is incapable of controlling their sugar intake.
Shocking that this particular leadership group doesn’t realize that this optical technology notoriously misreads values in dark skinned individuals. Wonder why.
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The Apple Watch that finally debuted this feature will outsell all previous models by a wide margin. Hopefully it won’t be available only on the Ultra.