Don't use a smartwatch or smart ring for blood glucose monitoring just yet
As more wearables promise noninvasive ways of measuring your blood glucose levels, the Food and Drug Administration has gone on record saying the technology hasn't earned its seal of approval.
Apple Watch health tracking
On Wednesday, the FDA released a statement warning patients against using smart rings and smartwatches that claim to measure blood glucose levels non-invasively, citing fears of inaccuracy. It suggests that patients do not buy devices for this purpose and instead continue to use traditional devices that require a patient to prick their skin.
And the FDA makes a good point -- individuals with diabetes rely heavily on accurate blood glucose measurements to manage their condition. However, if these measurements are incorrect, it can lead to serious errors in diabetes management.
For instance, taking the wrong dose of insulin, sulfonylureas, or other medications that can rapidly lower blood glucose can result in dangerously low glucose levels. This can lead to mental confusion, coma, or even death within a few hours.
Apple has shown interest in adding noninvasive glucose monitoring to its flagship wearable, the Apple Watch. In 2021, a series of patent applications showed Apple was developing terahertz electromagnetic radiation sensors, which would would allow the Apple Watch to monitor glucose levels non-invasively.
In February 2023, it was reported that Apple had reached the "proof of concept" stage.
In September, Apple's vice president of platform architecture in charge of developing Apple Silicon, Tim Millet, was assigned to head the Apple Watch glucose tracker project.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
Pulling it off with enough accuracy has been very hard and I think we are near to a breakthrough.
Keep me from dying.
An accurate, non-invasive glucose monitor would be an absolute godsend for those that need to keep a close eye on their sugar levels, but it isn't something that everyone needs. It would likely had a big impact on sales, with people buying it for that functionality alone, however for the rest of the population, it wouldn't be needed but might be "nice" to be able to see.. So I guess there is a reasonable argument to be made that if it's sensors require sacrificing something else, or require the watch to be bigger, or shorten battery life, that there would be two lines of apple watches, ones with and ones without the glucose monitoring.
We can now say with relative clarity that changes in the food industry combined with lifestyle changes have led to a massive increase in sugar related illnesses which typically take many years to develop. Especially in the 'western' world.
My brother was overweight and happy until he had a wobbly in a supermarket and was eventually diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and told that the problems really began around 15 years earlier.
He is now on medication and has lost 15kg through lifestyle changes. It's a great response on his part but 'reversing' the situation, although probably possible, will take a long time and a lot of effort.
With today's recent discoveries related to how industrial food processing, sugar and lifestyle, a constant non-invasive glucose monitor for those apparently 'healthy' folks (combined with AI) could flag future problems years before they actually appear.
We don't need technology to eat well and do exercise but we know people fall into bad habits easily and a continuous monitoring system could provide a track record which can be anonimysed and used by AI to help current and future generations.
The other long term 'silent' illness is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and some smartscales are trying to give indicators on that too.
Pulling all the sensor information together for analysis could have a major impact on general health for people who consider themselves 'healthy' in spite of obvious signs that they aren't, along with reducing the cost of treating these kinds of chronic illnesses.
It is more convenient than finger pricking but nothing like as accurate. It is off either + or - 20 points on each reading when compared with a finger prick device. This is deemed normal by 'the diabetic specialist who prescribes it.
I wonder how much the proto-type Apple Watch sensor is off? if it's more than this the FDA is correct in not approving it.
I would suspect the companies that make the 2 most common current devices approved, the Freestyle sensors and the Dexcom G6 CGM have the FDA in their pockets, and the standard they impose for Apple is higher than this simply because it's 'Apple'.
That doesn't mean a non-invasive system is of no use to them.
A calibrated non-invasive device that can track trends is of use to everyone (type 1 diabetics included). Especially if a continous, but invasive, option is not feasible. Nocturnal hipoglucemia for patients (especially long term type 1 diabetics) is a real problem for those with low sensitivity who do not wake up easily after the onset of the drop in glucose levels.
Type 2 diabetics and people in general will benefit from real-time readings. Of course, assuming the devices themselves are accurate enough to track trends.
All invasive CGM solutions still require pin pricks for fallback readings in case of anomalous readings.
Great for night control as well.
So, at least for me, and maybe you, knowing if you have sharp rises in blood sugar that result in more insulin being delivered by your pancreas (assuming that you have a working one) can work with your weight management.
*(I’ve had it for 52 years, so readers, please don’t lecture me on T1/T2)
But even the one touch can be off if we don’t wash our hands…. But yeah, when the Dexcom is off, I do the finger stick.
By “accurate”, the OneTouch is pretty much the standard for finger stick tests, and >75mg/dl, 100% of readings are within 15%. What this means is when it reads:
100, it can be 85-115
150: 127.5 - 172.5
200: 170 - 230
All of this follows the bell curve, but for both Dexcom and finger sticks, the Dexcom is 20% above 80 mg/dl.
https://support.onetouch.com/s/article/OneTouch-Ultra-Test-Strips-Performance-Accuracy-And-Statistics
The blood glucose measurements have been way off, the uric acid is way off, the cholesterol measurement is surprisingly accurate (no idea how the heck they can do that), the heart rate is spot on, and the blood pressure is dead-on accurate for the systolic (top) number, but the diastolic (bottom) number always reads 10-15 points higher than it is. I test blood pressure often during the day upon waking, during and after exercise, in moments of sedentary nothingness, when working on projects, etc. I also use a cuff to test in the morning and at night. Systolic has always been accurate and. diastolic has always. been 10-15 points higher than reality. BMI/bodyfat % reads high compared to professional measurement, but not crazy far off.
I just had a thorough blood test on Friday and received results online today through Quest and the most recent watch failed big time regarding uric acid and blood glucose measurements.
If someone can figure out glucose monitoring on a watch, they'll take the crown. Same thing goes for blood pressure.