Top Five Apps for Diabetic Care

Written for Diabetes1 by Michelle Alford

Whether you are looking to simplify your life, learn more about diabetes, or keep up with the latest news, there’s an app that can help you. Here’s a look at the best apps for diabetic care. 

Glucose Buddy—iPhone, iPad, iTouch

Glucose Buddy is an easy way to manage diabetes while on the go. It can be used to record your blood glucose, medications, food, and exercise data. The interface is clean and easily understandable, and it is simple to upload new information. You simply click “Add Log,” select a category, and tap the numbers to enter your data. The date and time are registered automatically, but you can also backlog information if you forgot to add it at an earlier time.

In addition to the app, Glucose Buddy has a website. The mobile app syncs with the website and instantly transfers your information from your mobile device to your private online account. The website provides more extensive graphs and analyses of your data. It also allows you to easily print off your data to share with a doctor.

There are many similar apps, but this one is clean, simple, and has everything you need.

Price: Free

Nutrition Menu—iPhone

Though not created for diabetics, Nutrition Menu is an extremely useful tool. It has the full nutritional information for over 93,000 food items. This includes 51,000 common foods and 42,000 menu items from over 350 U.S. and Canadian restaurants. Its nutritional information includes calories, sugar, and carbohydrates. You can also add your own custom food items if what you’re looking for isn’t in the database.  

Nutrition Menu also includes 150 exercises and the option to add your own customized exercises. It calculates how many calories you’ve burned based on your weight.

Nutrition Menu is an active app that is constantly updating with more food and exercises. It has updated 33 times in the past 20 months.

Price: $2.99 usually. Currently on sale for $0.99.

HealthSeeker—Facebook

HealthSeeker is a Facebook game developed by Diabetes Hands Foundation. It follows the format of modern video games, except that you complete missions in real life instead of within the game. When you first join HealthSeeker, you choose which lifestyle goal you’d like to achieve. You’re then given a list of possible missions to help you achieve your goal. Each mission includes multiple real life changes for you to make during the week. The missions start out easy, but as you progress in the game, the missions become more difficult. For each mission you complete, you receive experience points. You also receive experience points for interacting with friends within the game.

Beginning level missions for diabetics include:

Carbs Count! This mission will help you balance your carb intake. Actions to complete include switching to water or diet sodas instead of drinking sweetened soft drinks and asking a waiter to substitute a vegetable for potato or rice.

Snack Attack! This mission will help you choose healthy snacks. Actions to complete include creating 100 calorie snack bags so that you know how much you’re eating and storing high sugar treats where you can’t see them.

Size Matters! This mission will help you control your serving size. Actions to complete include drinking a glass of water before each meal and setting aside leftovers before you start eating your meal so that you won’t be tempted to eat it all.

Move it! Move it! This mission will increase your physical activity level. Actions to complete include walking 20-30 minutes during your lunch break and signing up for an activity like dance, yoga, or martial arts that you’ve always wanted to try.

Price: Free

OnTrack Diabetes—Android

OnTrack Diabetes helps android users to manage their diabetes. Like Glucose Buddy, OnTrack Diabetes allows you to input your glucose, medication, food, and exercise. It tracks many personal health statistics, including weight, blood pressure, carb intake, and your daily average glucose levels.

OnTrack allows you to view your statistics in easy-to-understand graphs and charts. You can set it up to show your statistical average so that you know when your data is outside your normal glucose range. You can also tag data with notes to help you understand why your data differs from day to day. Unlike Glucose Buddy, there isn’t a connected website. However, you can export data and email it to yourself or others.   

Price: Free

ScanAvert—iPhone, Android

From the ScanAvert website:

“According to US Census… over two thirds of Americans follow some form of diet, however less than 15% know what their recommended dietary allowances should be. Fifty percent of Americans take prescribed drugs, often unaware they are ingesting substances that are contra-indicative.”

ScanAvert allows you to input your dietary needs and which medications you take. Then you can use the camera feature on your phone to scan the barcodes of food items at any supermarket. ScanAvert will tell you if the food fits your recommended dietary allowances. It will also tell you if it interferes with the effectiveness of any medicines that you’re taking. If the food is not acceptable, ScanAvert will provide you with a list of acceptable alternatives.

ScanAvert will also automatically alert you if any of the products you’ve scanned in the past have been recalled.

Price: $1.99 per month.

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Photo: Robert Anthony Provost