Dr Eda Cengiz on New Technologies in Diabetes Management

Smart phone apps and other new technologies can replace past methods and make life easier for diabetes patients, according to Eda Cengiz, MD, MHS, FAAP, associate professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine.

Transcript (slightly modified)

Besides the “artificial pancreas,” are there any other devices or technologies you’re excited about in diabetes management?

Yes, we’re trying to design devices to deal with mundane tasks of diabetes. Hopefully we’ll have more devices for carb counting, like automatic systems, and there are other devices that can detect your activity, your energy expenditure, so the system will be informed and it will be easier to adjust your insulin dose.

There are probably many other things out there that’s going to make your life easier, like some simple tools like smart phone apps. None of my patients are using log books and pencils, if I give them a pen and a log book they just show me all of the apps on their phone. Those simple things are actually becoming a part of our lives and as we use them more and more, there are going to be more sophisticated systems and devices. Some of them may be developed by our patients and now we have that technology as well.