Diabetes and Apple

There has been a number of rumours for years now about Apple and blood glucose monitoring (BGM). It is not exactly a secret that Apple is working on some kind of technology to tackle diabetes head-on. If Apple can do this, it would turn the Apple Watch into a must-have health tool.

Modern Diabetes Management
400 million people live with diabetes worldwide. With the number of different devices now available for consumers to choose from, it’s fair to say BGM technology is evolving. Some of the most common devices involve taking small blood samples to test glucose levels. Others rely on implants under the skin that can connect to devices via Bluetooth. It is safe to say that all current BGM devices rely on some aspects of invasiveness.

Apple
When the Apple Watch made its first debut in 2015, it was not clear where the watch would fit into daily use. Presently, the Apple Watch has advanced heart rate and fitness monitoring and can perform an ECG. Thanks to the performance and development of Apple’s hardware and software team’s the watch is also extremely good at machine learning. The watch can even determine and learn how you swim to estimate calories burned. In late 2019 it became documented that both Google and Apple are working on advanced technologies for non-invasive BGM.

Non-invasive? But how?
According to patentlyapple.com, there have been multiple patents that have been lodged by Apple which hints at this BGM technology. One patent hints at using an advanced form of spectroscopy. This patent hints at highly accurate scanning technology using scattered light and measuring vibrational energy levels. As a result, these advanced scans can actually identify molecules of an evaluated substance.

How long will this take?
The biggest question on everyone’s mind is ‘when will this technology be ready?’ and the answer is unknown. Personally, I am very optimistic about this topic. Three years ago, if you were to say to me that you will be able to take an ECG on your wrist I definitely would not have believed you. I am taking a similar approach with glucose monitoring because if Apple really does one thing very well, it's taking advanced technology and turning it mainstream. Couple this with the fact that Google is also investing in health care technology like diabetes management and we have a bit of a tech arms race on our hands.

I thought this would be an interesting topic to do some research on as in my most recent post about the Apple Watch I hinted at how this device will link in with diabetes management. This type of technology might take five years, it might take ten years. Regardless of the fact, I can’t hide the fact that I am getting excited about even seeing patents on this kind of tech.

I intend to be covering this topic very closely in the future so please stay tuned for more future updates.