Apple appears to be working on blood glucose monitoring as a way to address Type 2 Diabetes
“Apple appears to be working on blood glucose monitoring as a way to address Type 2 Diabetes,” Jean-Louis Gassée writes for Monday Note. “‘Glucose monitoring’ is a code word for fighting the growing scourge of Type 2 Diabetes. Unlike Type 1 Diabetes, which is unpreventable, the Type 2 variety is, to be polite, a ‘lifestyle’ disease, meaning we eat too much and don’t exercise enough. (As usual, the French are more brutal: for them, Type 2 is Diabète gras, Fat Diabetes).
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“A 2016 Harvard School of Public Health study places the global cost of Type 2 Diabetes at $825B per year and growing,” Gassée writes. “Devices that tell you your blood sugar concentration, once the province of the lab, have moved into the home. With just a minuscule drop of blood — as little as .3 microliter — you can get an answer in seconds. The subject is immediately alerted to an anomalous rise in blood sugar, a circumstance that could result in limb amputation, blindness, and kidney failure if left untreated. But drawing blood, even in minute quantities, is painful, and pain, or fear of it, limits acceptance.”
“This leads us back to the rumor[s and reports] that Apple is getting into the blood sugar monitoring business,” Gassée writes. “Put the pieces together and this is what we have: The Type 2 Diabetes epidemic has created a broad (pardon the heartless expression) ‘consumer base.’ Apple is serious about blood glucose monitoring. The glucose monitor would be a separate device, an accessory to the Watch. And it would be ‘bloodless.’”
Read more in the full article here.