

MySugr diabetes management app heads to the US, Tim Ferriss new advisor - JRutherford
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/06/06/mysugr-diabetes-management-app-heads-to-the-us-brings-tim-ferriss-along-for-the-ride/

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codva
Speaking as somebody who is married to a Type I diabetic...

The only way for a type I diabetic to stop taking insulin is to get a new
pancreas. Tim Ferris claims a lot of skills but I don't think transplant
surgeon is one of them. Proper diet and exercise can absolutely reverse Type
II diabetes, which is probably where Tim has helped. It's an important
distinction as this app appears to be targeted specifically at Type I folks
who are dependent on external insulin.

I appreciate what they've done here but most blood sugar meters are already
storing the readings and they have some poorly designed mechanism to get at
the data. If they could import or somehow work with the data already stored in
the meter that would be really, really powerful. Manually tracking each blood
sugar test is going to be a limiting factor on adoption. My wife, for example,
only looks back at her readings if she is having an issue. She'd appreciate a
better interface to do that, but I'm sure she will not take up manually
updating an app 8 - 10 times a day. I doubt she is unique in that regard.

A 150 average blood sugar level across all users shown on the front page seems
high. Maybe it's an English vs metric measurement thing. I know what a good
blood sugar is in the US (80-120) but I don't actually know the units are on
that.

Cool app though. Now if they could just incorporate the blood test meter right
into the iPhone...

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lowmagnet
90-140 _average_ is what medtronic considers 'in-range' in my pump's data
sets. Diamedic, another iPhone app for this, considers 80-160 'in-range'.

The difference isn't due to being from .au. It's because nobody agrees on what
'in-range' means.

My pump keeps track of all of this and uses a web site (carelink) to track
results, and share them with my doctor/care team. I stopped using Diamedic
since getting the pump, and it's nice to not have to perform an entry every
time I mesure/bolus. It keeps track of everything, dose, carbs, readings,
basal rate, etc.

If I apply one of their sensors, it tracks rough estimates of bg every 5
minutes, but it doesn't use blood to do so, making the result somewhat
inaccurate. Good for spotting trends.

~~~
codva
I'm painfully familiar with Carelink. Until just the last year or so I
maintained an XP box at home that was only turned on once every 90 days, when
my wife needed to upload data to print reports for her doctor. The Carelink
hardware didn't work with anymore more recent than XP until 2011 or 2012.

That continuous monitoring is kind of cool in short bursts. It's only a matter
of time until there is a real-time feedback loop that allows to pump to auto-
adjust as needed.

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glennos
Used to work next to these guys. Great team, great idea, beautiful execution.
Nice to see a self tracking app that does something really worthwhile.

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toshimitzu
Saw them on a Startup Gig in Vienna once - decent people - wish them all the
best

