From diagnostic fingernail sensors to the use of its Watson platform to help invent new drugs, IBM has impressively positioned itself at the forefront of medical tech. Today, January 3, it announced the latest project in this field: a new mobile app feature that’s designed to work as an early warning sign for diabetics about the perils of “going low” on their blood sugar levels.
To the uninitiated, keeping these blood sugar levels in check sounds easy: Simply avoid eating food with too much sugar and you’re good to go. However, the reality is that things are more complicated than that. A person living with type 1 diabetes has to make upwards of 180 decisions every single day, all of which can affect their well being. These can range from how long to sleep or exercise to when that person should have a cup of coffee. It’s an enormous amount of data to juggle — and, should consistent wrong decisions be made, the result can be weakness, fainting and, potentially, even death.
Fortunately, where humans struggle to weigh up complex data sets, machine learning tools turn out to be pretty darn great at it. This is what IBM and the world’s largest medical device company Medtronic have attempted with their new predictive tool. Baked into the Sugar.IQ app, IQcast analyzes your data to assess the likelihood of you “going low” within the next several hours.
“Avoiding complications like hypoglycemia is a tremendous burden, but fortunately it is a problem that can help be alleviated by learning from data, which is where A.I. comes in,” Dr. Lisa Latts, deputy chief health officer at IBM Watson Health, told Digital Trends. “Using machine learning models and predictive algorithms, IQcast analyzes multiple signals coming from a user, such as glucose levels, insulin data, food logs, and prior hypoglycemic events to assess whether a user has a low, medium, or high chance of experiencing hypoglycemia within the upcoming four hours.”
The app works in conjunction with Medtronic’s Guardian Connect continuous glucose monitor; adding on top of this a predictive model which gets smarter over time. At the most recent American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, the team behind the tool presented data that showed that, when using a continuous glucose monitor in conjunction with Sugar.IQ, users are more likely to achieve an extra 36 minutes per day in a healthy glucose range of 70-180 mg/dL. That includes 30 minutes less time per day in hyperglycemia, and 6 minutes less time per day in hypoglycemia.
The Sugar.IQ app, now with added IQcast feature, is available today to download for iOS in the U.S. In order to function, it must be used in tandem with the Guardian Connect continuous glucose monitor system, built and offered by Medtronic.
