Diabetes Monitoring Company Dexcom Partners With Fitbit, But Apple Watch Users Not Abandoned

Diabetes monitoring company Dexcom partners with Fitbit, but Apple Watch users not abandoned

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After praising the Apple Watch earlier in the year, glucose monitoring software company Dexcom has forged a partnership with Fitbit to integrate the technology into the Ionic smartwatch —but the monitoring featured in the Fitbit device may appear on the Apple Watch with watchOS 4.
With a software update in 2018, the Fitbit Ionic will show a user's date from the G5 mobile sensor. Data will be updated every 5 minutes to wearers of the sensor, allowing for trend tracking for diabetics and athletes.
At present, the Dexcom G5 will pass data through a connected iPhone. However, with the implementation of Core Bluetooth in watchOS 4, the same data can be provided to the user without a connected iPhone after the app is installed on the Apple Watch —and all it will take is an app update.
"The collaboration between Dexcom and Fitbit is an important step in providing useful information to people with diabetes that is both convenient and discreet," Dexcom CEO Kevin Sayer said in a statement about the collaboration. "We believe that providing Dexcom CGM data on Fitbit Ionic, and making that experience available to users of both Android and iOS devices, will have a positive impact on the way people manage their diabetes."
In June, Sayer confirmed the Core Bluetooth features of the Dexcom G5 monitor. He noted at the time that after an initial setup with an iPhone, the capability would enhance the lives of those who relied on the technology for glucose monitoring.
The G5 relies on a small wire about the width as a human hair inserted just below the skin, and dismissed any possi Continue reading

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An Apple Watch for Diabetics Won’t Hit the Market Anytime Soon

During the last few years, we have witnessed an unprecedented acceleration of technological advances for people with diabetes, a condition that affects nearly 30 million Americans. New systems are promising patients less hassle, less pain, fewer injections and finger pokes, less mental math, and less worry about managing their condition. These advances provide more accurate and real-time information on blood sugar (glucose) through wireless technology, apps, built-in clinical decision support algorithms, and automated insulin delivery systems that can reduce diabetes burden and complications. Even Apple (aapl, +0.28%) has reportedly hired biomedical engineers to develop a sensor that detects blood sugar, sparking talk of the company potentially embedding the sensors into a wearable watch that could become a “must have” for people with diabetes. But it will be a long time before it’s actually on the market.
There have been some recent successes: Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems, such as the Dexcom G5 Mobile CGM system, use a sensor through a tiny catheter slipped under the skin that reads glucose every five minutes. This sensor wirelessly transmits information to a stand-alone receiver or smartphone to alert patients of upward or downward trends in their glucose so they can take preemptive action.
Large strides toward an “artificial pancreas” were taken in 2016 when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the Medtronic MiniMed 670G, which is the first device to uses CGM data to automatically adjust background insulin doses, which are then deliver Continue reading

Advances in Diabetes Care Apple-style

I think we all understand Apple-style at this point. The company drops a product, the buzz explodes, and after the dust cloud settles we often realize that, yes, our lives and the computing landscape around us have indeed been irrevocably changed.
But what about Apple and T1D?
Let’s start with the deep past. Ten years ago, Amy Tenderich, diabetes advocate and founder of DiabetesMine, wrote an essay called “An Open Letter to Steve Jobs.” IPod sales had recently reached the 100 million mark, and the essay, which went viral, called on Jobs to apply the same technological innovation and brilliance to the design of cutting edge diabetes-care devices. Her thrust: let’s save lives and have convenient access to our music libraries at the same time.
Evidence is emerging that Jobs, who died in 2011, listened.
Last spring Apple CEO Tim Cook was seen wearing a mysterious Apple Watch tied to a prototype glucose tracker. Rumors about Apple cracking the “holy grail” of diabetes management: a noninvasive CGM system that did not require breaking the skin with a needle sensor or wire began to stir. Around the same time, news reports confirmed that Apple had hired a secret team of scientists and was indeed working on such a project.
The here and now
This summer Apple announced a fall update to its Health app incorporating the ability to track insulin delivery doses. The update, which is available in the recently released iOS 11 software, includes both basal and bolus insulin delivery tracking. Simply open Health, go to Health Data, click on results, and then insulin to enter data. Continue reading

How to keep sex alive and well when you have diabetes

A chronic illness has a way of throwing a wrench into many aspects of our lives, including sex.
Type 2 diabetes is one such disease in which sexuality is commonly affected and difficulties experienced by both men and women with this condition. Not only can this disease cause sexual complications for both genders, but it can also cause gender-specific issues.
Sexuality issues affecting both men and women
There are several common sexuality problems shared by both men and women with type 2 diabetes. One is a decrease in libido, or loss of sex drive. Low libido in type 2 diabetes can be a result of:
Side effects of medications for high blood pressure or depression
Extreme fatigue
Lack of energy
Depression
Hormonal changes
Stress, anxiety, and relationship issues
Diabetic neuropathy, a type of nerve damage associated with diabetes, can cause numbness, pain, or lack of feeling in the genitals. This may also inhibit the ability to have an orgasm or to feel sexual stimulation. The side effects of diabetic neuropathy may make sex painful or unenjoyable.
To combat the issue of type 2 diabetes negatively affecting a couple's sex life, communication is important. Couples need to open up and feel free to talk about the issue and to seek out a solution to the problem by discussing this with their primary care physician.
Sexuality issues affecting men with type 2 diabetes
The most widely reported sexuality issue by men is erectile dysfunction (ED). Occasionally, a man may first be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes when he seeks out treatment for ED. ED is a condition commonly found in men wi Continue reading

Fresh Fruit Protects Against Diabetes

Often we hear that eating fruit is bad for our blood sugar – or that a type-2 diabetic shouldn’t eat fruit. Well, this is just plain wrong.
The notion that fresh fruit – or certain types of fresh fruit – increases our blood sugar too high is faulty. And the assumption that fruit contains too much fructose and fructose is bad for us is also erroneous.
How can we say this with certainty? Scientific evidence.
The reality is that eating all types of fresh fruits can help prevent type 2 diabetes and it also helps improve a type-2 diabetic’s condition.
Let’s discuss some hard research evidence that proves this out.
Large study proves diabetes risk lowered with fruit
A 2017 study followed 512,891 adults from regions throughout China. The researchers followed the participants for seven years. They tracked their diets and in particular, their consumption of fresh fruit. The researchers screened for both types of diabetes at the beginning and at the end of the study. Note that both types of diabetes include type 1 and type 2, though type 1 only comprised about 0.2 percent of cases in this study. The researchers also vascular disease and mortality.
The researchers found that only 19 percent of the adults consumed fresh fruit daily, and 6.4 percent never or rarely ate fresh fruit. Those who rarely or never ate fresh fruit had three times the incidence of diabetes at the beginning of the study.
Among those who didn’t have diabetes at the beginning of the study, eating fresh fruit reduced the incidence of diabetes by 12 percent. Eating fresh fruit also reduced the reduced t Continue reading