Diabetes

What’s so difficult about living with diabetes is that it never takes a break. If they’re lucky enough to live somewhere with access to diagnosis and care, people with diabetes get a few hours of support from a nurse or doctor throughout the year, but are left to handle their diabetes by themselves the rest of the time. 

With so much to learn, track and think about – and needing to make around 180 decisions every day1  – it can be difficult to integrate it all into a daily routine and feel like there’s  life beyond diabetes.

As it stands, a person dies from diabetes and its complications every five seconds. Unfortunately, diabetes is drastically on the rise and it’s expected that we’ll move from 537 million adults currently living with diabetes to 783 million by 2045.2 With costs already so high, and access to treatment already so challenging, especially in low- and middle-income countries, the strain on individuals and societies is set to worsen.

Getting the right mix of solutions to the right person at the right time can ease the burden on healthcare professionals, healthcare systems and society. And what’s especially important to us – it can make life easier for people living with diabetes. With so much to learn, dozens of decisions to make and hundreds of data points to keep track of on any given day, personalising diabetes care can provide insights and decision support to help people with diabetes think less about their daily management.

Diabetes is as unique as the person managing it, and we need to treat it that way. The future of diabetes management is its personalisation.

References:

1. Erin Digitale, Scopeblog Stanford: New research keeps diabetics safer during sleep [Internet, cited 2023 Oct 3]. Available from: https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2014/05/08/new-research-keeps-diabetics-safer-during-sleep/

2. IDF Diabetes Atlas [Internet, cited 2023 Oct 3]. Available from: https://diabetesatlas.org/