In this illustrative scenario, we explore how the DietSensor App, used in conjunction with the optional spectroscopic sensor, allows easier measurement and calculation of the total carbohydrates in a meal (and also helps encourage healthy eating habits) for Margaret, a type 1 Diabetic.
Margaret has type 1 diabetes. To effectively manage her condition, she needs to be able to monitor and control the amount of insulin she uses each day, and so needs to measure the carbohydrates that she eats in order to calculate just how much insulin she needs to use to keep her levels balanced.
One of the most significant challenges facing Margaret and other type 1 Diabetics is that they need to calculate everything they eat. This can be a constant battle because it requires real time and effort crunching the numbers and ensuring that the information is accurate. We have learned through trial and error roughly what each food’s carb level is. However, this can still be something of a guessing game, given the spikes and dips in blood sugar often seen after eating.
Margaret uses the DietSensor system, which enables the carbohydrate values of the food and drink that type 1 Diabetics plan to consume to be measured and added in a variety of ways. For example, she can access the App’s large nutritional database, which contains more than 600,000 items, to search for the values of any type of food, or scan a product’s barcode go get nutritional data, and add favorite foods to her own gallery, to make tracking data really easy. A key feature of the DietSensor ecosystem is the optional, pocket-sized SCiO® spectroscopic scanner, which can be used to gather information on the make-up of homogenous food types by reading the cells of the food directly and generating nutritional information which is ported directly into the App via Bluetooth, which is handy when you don’t have a label or barcode, or are cooking at home from scratch. Portion size is important when monitoring carbohydrate intake. Margaret uses DietSensor’s Bluetooth scale, another add-on device, that weighs and sends data directly into the app, giving her a significant degree of control.
Effectively, DietSensor makes the repetitive estimating of carbs a simple task because it does all the heavy calculation. In Margaret’s case, the App’s additional features help her to balance her meals, for example, tracking all macro nutrients (fat, protein and carbs) that she eats, providing her with actionable advice and suggestions for what to eat, based on the historical data of the day and the goals that she set herself initially when she set up her DietSensor profile, broken out by nutrient and by meal. As fats and proteins are also modifying the way she digests carbs, using DietSensor means that keeping her blood sugar under control is much less complicated, and can all be done on her cellphone.
