What Are The Benefits Of Using Diabetes Apps
Using a diabetes app can help you better manage your condition. Many apps have interactive features that let you input data and track your progress, as well as offer lifestyle tips and reminders to establish and maintain healthy habits that can positively impact your condition. Plus, some diabetes apps connect you to communities of people who have similar health interests and challenges.
Controlmyweight By Calorie King
Another app that makes the list as one of the best carb counting apps? ControlMyWeight. ControlMyWeight is similar to MyFitnessPal in that it helps individuals track their calories, carbs, and fats. The great thing about it is while it does offer a comprehensive understanding of carbohydrates, it also provides foods with a food grade which ranks them based on how healthy they are. As a result, it is a great carb counting app for diabetics as it allows those with diabetes to find healthier food options to assist with diabetes management tracking their carbs.
Mynetdiary Makes Tracking Diabetes A Snap To Control Your Blood Sugar
Tracking diabetes helps you identify relationships between blood glucose and weight, exercise, medication, and food and beverage intake. When you understand these relationships, you can analyze, plan, and act to better control your blood glucose levels. MyNetDiary offers the complete tracking solution to take charge of your diabetes.
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Glucose Tracker And Diary
Price: Free / $3.49
Glucose Tracker and Diary is one of the simpler diabetes apps for things like blood sugar, insulin intake, and other metrics. You can use either major measurement you want and it also supports bread units to track your carbohydrate intake. There is also a tag system in place so you can know when any given measurement was taken. The UI is easy enough to use and everything is reasonably well presented. We also like this app because it requires only a single payment instead of a subscription, like most others. The only downside is no support for Bluetooth glucose meters like other diabetes apps sometimes have.
The Best Diabetes Apps Of 2022
Considering the fact that diabetes management is a non-stop, 24/7 responsibility that persists 365 days a year, apps designed to help us manage our blood sugars and overall health is a great idea!
One thing all apps have in common: youre gonna get what you give.
If youre to benefit from any diabetes or health-related app, you do have to take at least a little time to upload your blood sugar data doesnt automatically sync with that app), enter your food and activity, and your medications.
You dont have to do all of that but the more of it you do, the more helpful information youll get from your diabetes apps.
Lets take a look at the best diabetes, food, and exercise/activity apps that can help you manage your diabetes.
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Count Calories And Macronutrients On Your Smartphone
- Ohio State University
Food journaling has never been easier with food-tracking apps for smartphones and tablets. Some of the best food-tracking apps use your phone’s camera to scan food label barcodes to track calories, macronutrients, and protein amounts in the foods you eat.
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Get motivation from the My Fitness Pal community.
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Smartphone interface can be clunky to use.
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Difficult to enter meals quickly.
With more than 6 million foods in its database and more than 4 million food barcodes, MyFitnessPal makes it easy to log breakfast, lunch, dinner, and afternoon snacks. With powerful metrics, My FitnessPal gives insights on calories, fat, protein, carbs, sugar, fiber, cholesterol, and vitamins. It’s easy to plan your meals in advance and stay on track with your nutritional goals.
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Simple, quick, and easy way to make a food journal.
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Lack of photo editing capabilities.
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No calorie counter.
Rather than typing a daily log of your meals, snap a photo instead. See How You Eat, by Health Revolution Ltd, is an app built on the belief that seeing what you eat can help you make positive dietary changes.
This food-tracking app does exactly what it says. It lets you document your meals visually, without any complicated calorie or macronutrient support. You can also easily share photos on social media.
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Daily summaries to help you stay within calorie limits.
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Useful for athletes who want to gain weight.
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Ads are intrusive.
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Only tracks protein.
One Drop Diabetes Management
This app is a free, award-winning app for people living with diabetes, prediabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
Track all your health data in one place, join a supportive community, and explore health news, recipes, and tips.
The Apple Watch quick dashboard provides you your blood glucose in range readings, notification on medications taken, activity summary, and much more.
Quickly tap on your Apple Watch to find your daily and weekly blood glucose level trends. The interface is straightforward to understand and is well designed on the One Drop Apple Watch app.
Track blood sugar, meds, meals, and activity using your Apple Watch. View your daily stats, including goal progress and in-range glucose readings.
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What You Need To Look For In A Diabetes App
If you or a member of your family have diabetes, youll already know this universal and chronic condition can complicate already busy and hectic lifestyles. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , type 1, 2 and gestational diabetes affect over 29 million Americans, and can have hazardous health consequences if not monitored and taken care of properly. The good news is, where monitoring your diabetes was once a full time job, its now easier than ever. Enter the technological era of smartphones, where helpful apps are on the rise to support and manage self-care of diabetes, including eating healthy food, exercising, remembering to take medicines like insulin, and sticking to your treatment plan. There are plenty of life-improving apps out there, and this list will help figure out what you need to look for in a diabetes app.
Food and Exercise Apps
If youve been struggling with nutrition and health long-term, the app Fooducate aims to help you make healthier food choices. Whats really smart about this app is its internal barcode scanner, which you can use to reveal all sorts of useful nutritional information about the food youre eating. Upon scan, youll be given a personalized grade, notifying you how nutritional this item is for you based on your own profile sort of like having your own weight-loss coach in your pocket.
Intellin Diabetes Management By Gendius Ltd
Based out of the UK and approved by the National Health Service. The Intellin Diabetes Management app’s unique selling point is a feature that assesses a patient’s risk of developing complications associated with Diabetes. They sell their product based on the idea that common test results, when inputted into the application, can predict potential future complications. For example, tests such as blood chemistry can provide indicators of diabetes-associated health problems. Consequently, treatment can be personalized using this additional data to prevent high-risk complications caused by Diabetes.
In summary, historically, most diabetes apps have been ârear view mirrorsâ â i.e., you can see where youâve been. Intellin® lets you do this too, but importantly it acts as a âSatNavâ to help you plot the route ahead.
However, the idea that the additional data would make a difference to the treatment received is a bit of a stretch, simply because these tests are done anyway. The data obtained is assessed by medical professionals prior to any treatment recommendation. Blood pressure and blood chemistry are only tested when there is a reason to test, symptoms displayed, etc., unlike blood glucose levels which need constant monitoring.
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Choose The Diabetes Tracking App Thats Right For You
Diabetes tracking apps range from simple apps that can track your blood sugar levels to advanced apps that provide personalized coaching and educational tools. If this is your first time using a diabetes tracking app, then you may want to start by focusing on the simplest tools and integrating more advanced options over time.
Apps For Mental Health
You may have heard of the mind-body connection, which refers to how your emotions, thoughts, and attitudes can affect your physical health. For people with diabetes specifically, the American Diabetes Association notes that blood glucose levels are raised through feelings of stress, and stabilized when in a more relaxed state.
The daily effort required in managing a chronic condition like diabetes can also lead to feelings of stress or anxiety over perfect glucose control, as well as depression. With fluctuating and at times unpredictable blood glucose readings, try to strive for progress over perfection.
Consider utilizing the following apps to focus on improving mindfulness and reducing anxiety and stress.
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Mynetdiarys Diabetes And Diet Tracker
Android rating: 4.5
$9.99
Youll find just about everything you might want to track in this app: blood glucose, insulin, medication, meals, water intake, and physical activity. It comes with a built-in barcode scanner and a food database to tally up your nutrient intake. Also included is a GPS tracker to log distances for walking, running, or bicycling.
It will remind you to check your blood sugar, and it will give you summary reports to help you understand the relationships between blood sugar, diet, and exercise. Add the apps subscription for a few premium features, including syncing with fitness trackers and smart scales.
Which Diabetes App Is Best
With so many options available today, its impossible to choose one app as the best diabetes app for everyone. We listed Medical ID as an app everyone should have since it lets users share essential medical data in critical situations. Beyond that, youll need to explore the apps listed here and think about which ones may be well-suited to your own needs.
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Diabetes Apps To Manage Your Health
These apps are the future. Thats what Anuj Shah, MD, an interventional cardiologist at Apex Heart and Vascular Center in New Jersey, says about diabetes apps. Dr. Shah is one of many medical professionals who views the smartphone-based diabetes trackers as a useful tool for people living with the condition.
Especially during COVID, there is such a huge need to monitor things remotely, Dr. Shah says. We are trying to manage peoples blood pressure, their heart rate remotely. Diabetes is the next big frontier where we can manage blood sugars remotely. The apps do have a lot of potential.
But with so many optionsand so little regulationit can be difficult to know which diabetes app is worth using. Apps dont need to go through the FDA, says Diana Isaacs, Pharm.D., a clinical pharmacist at the Cleveland Clinic Diabetes Center. If the app is faulty and tells the person to take too much or too little , that could cause harm.
Dr. Isaacs adds that smartphone updates are also cause for concern. Theres always a new version and, with that, it tends to lead to bugs. We need a coordinated effort.
All things considered, there are some diabetes apps that do their job right. Here are 15 that patients can use to track their condition, connect with the community of people with diabetes, compare prices on medication, and more.
Healthy Eating And Diabetes
Healthy eating and a balanced diet can help you to manage your diabetes. Consuming plenty of vegetables, legumes, and high-fibre, low GI carbohydrates helps to manage blood glucose levels and maintain general good health.
People with diabetes should avoid saturated fats, excess salt, and added sugars in their food. Additionally, portion size can be important for blood glucose levels and maintaining a healthy body weight. Weight gain can make diabetes more difficult to manage, so its a good idea for people with diabetes to make sure youre not eating too much.
Although diabetics shouldnt feel that they cant enjoy food or eat the same food as other people, it is a good idea to see a dietitian when youre diagnosed. They can help you work out good eating patterns and teach you more about the ways that nutrition can impact the condition.
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Diabetes Apps For Data Management
Glucose Buddy
Android Rating: 4.0Free
When you really think about it, who doesnt want a Glucose Buddy? This app certainly lives up to its name, offering all the features you could want from a diabetes app. A comprehensive food database, bar code scanning, and integration with Apple Health and Dexcom are all here.
Glucose Buddy doesnt do everything for free youll need to pay to use its A1C calculator . But that doesnt detract from the apps strengths, making it a true buddy for anyone dealing with diabetes.
Diabetes Tracker by MyNetDiary /MyNetDiarys Diabetes and Diet Tracker
Android Rating: 4.6$9.99
First of all, dont worry about the name these are two different versions of the same app. Whats more important is how impressive this app is. Youll be able to track any diabetes-related data point you can think of: blood glucose, insulin and medications, exercise , meals, and more. You can even log your water intake!
Of course, all that functionality comes with a price. Unlike any other app listed here, MyNetDiarys offering isnt free youll need to pay about $10 to get started. On top of that, theres a subscription for bonuses like fitness tracker/smart scale synchronization. But if you dont mind paying up, its hard to go wrong with this app.
The Most Important App To Have
One diabetes app that you should download regardless of technological skillset is Medical ID.
Medical ID allows you to enter all of your information including blood type, any allergies, medications that youre currently taking, pre-existing conditions like diabetes, and any medical or emergency contacts. It is then made accessible from the lock screen on your phone for first responders to use in order to properly treat you in case of an emergency. If you have an iPhone, this can be done using the pre-installed Health app. If you have an Android, you can download it from the app store. You wont actively use this app aside from during the initial setup, but it may one day save your life. Medical ID can be used by anyone and is not a diabetes-specific app, however, with the potential risks and complications that can occur in instances of hypoglycemia its absolutely essential. It is free to install and use on both iPhones and Androids.
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Aade’s Checklists And Guides : Printouts To Manage Your Diabetes
The American Association of Diabetes Educators is largely meant for medical professionals seeking to help patients manage the disease. But the site has a few resources for the patients directly, and they’re invaluable. There are two pages you should check.
The AADE Self-Care Behaviors page is a series of guides for people living with diabetes. The guides are divided into Healthy Eating, Being Active, Monitoring, Taking Medication, Problem Solving, Reducing Risks, and Healthy Coping. Go through each for valuable information that you can trust.
Then, check the Tools and Resources page. The AADE has a series of checklists and handouts to navigate common diabetic issues. This includes everything from medicinal checklists to printouts for healthy holiday eating. These small steps will help in living a better life.
We recommend you always seek out a medical professional for health advice, or only refer to trusted medical organizations like the AADE. If you have a small query that you don’t want to bother a doctor for, then here’s how to safely research health issues online.
Best Free Diabetes Apps For Android & Ios
Wednesday December 21, 2022
Healthcare industries have evolved by a huge difference ever since they have been enormously transformed by digital technology. Now there are mobile apps for fitness tracking and monitoring blood glucose, weight loss and even your diabetes as well. With these free apps, it is easy to watch and control your diabetes as you go about living your day.
Although the diabetes-centric mobile apps have unique features to assist you, their basic approach is to encourage good lifestyle habits including food intake, physical activity as well as blood sugar level maintenance.
They all are designed to focus on weight loss, calorie control, carb counts, insulin doses and diabetes-friendly diet.
Whether you have type 1, type 2, or progressive symptoms, these free diabetes apps ensure that your health data is accessible in one dashboard to simplify your diabetes management.
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In this blog, we will take a look at the 10 best free diabetes apps available in the UK.
- Useful for pros and the newly diagnosed
7) Diabetes Connect
Diabetes Connect provides you a great way to track and manage your diabetes symptoms, treatment and food intake habits. By enabling features that you can toggle on and off, Diabetes Connect helps you control the diabetic condition.
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These Diabetes Management Apps Can Make Life Easier For You And Your Child
Our smartphones and tablets give us access to a host of resources that can make a chronic illness like diabetes more manageable for kiddos and their parents. We sat down with Kimberly Barnes, charge nurse at Vanderbilts Eskind Pediatric Diabetes Clinic, to find out the latest tech tools to help with everything from food tracking to educating your child on symptoms and management.
Having diabetes is never fun, but I always share with families that they live in the best time and the best age because of the apps and the technology that are available to us now, Barnes said.