Never have I learned about diabetes and medtech in my entire life more than this week (technically speaking, last week)
It started when I found out about Health2Sync (https://www.health2sync.com), a diabetes-tracking startup (and app) based in Taiwan and expanded to Japan market since 2018 after seeing it as a viable and strategic Asian-expansion market. It is designed to sync with different devices and apps to help diabetic patients keep track of their health. (It can be used by anyone, but is particularly valuable for those with diabetes as for whom the app is primarily for)
First, the stats and background. Apparently Japan is among the top 10 countries with the most number of people diagnosed with diabetes, around 10 million people according to statistics (2018). The government here is said to be invested in preventing diabetes complications, Japan ranking 2nd in diabetes spending after the US (2018). And apparently, diabetes is covered by insurance companies in Japan, provided that the client uses Self-Monitoring of Blood Glucose (SMBG) device, hence proliferating its use in Japan. Glucose-monitoring and related devices have apparently evolved since then, but I will get to that later.
Now about diabetes itself. Diabetes is one of the deadliest diseases in the world, and one of the most (if not THE most) with which various complications is attributed to. This is because high glucose affects blood vessels, both microvascular and macrovascular, with the former leading to complications affecting the eyes, kidneys, and functions related to movement (neuropathy actually to be exact), and the latter affecting cerebral functions and heart. But this is also why I think it’s a preventable/controllable disease, and where medtech can play a huge role in. Which is why big players such as Apple and Google are keen on working on diabetes tech too.
As for the evolution of diabetes technology, I mentioned SMBG earlier, which is a cornerstone in the management of diabetes, as it allowed taking snapshot of the blood sugar in real-time, transcending the limitation of the traditional HbA1c test which only shows your average blood sugar level from 1-2 months ago. But since SMBG relies on blood sample for testing, its main disadvantage of SMBG is the physical pain experienced by patients with the need to prick, compounded by financial and other implications with additional resources needed for every test (needle and test strip).
Enter Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) and Flash Glucose Monitoring (FGM), which allows real-time and continuous monitoring of glucose (in the case of CGM) without relying on blood sample to measure your glucose. Instead, it works through a through a tiny sensor inserted under your skin (said to be the size of a 500-yen coin) which measures your interstitial glucose level, which is the glucose found in the fluid between the cells. With CGM/FGM, we further transcend the limitations of SMBG with its ability not just to take a particular snapshot of your blood sugar but paint the whole picture (glucose trend) of what happens to your glucose, hence giving patients and healthcare workers alike the ability to manage diabetes effectively—monitor and make timely and appropriate decisions as needed depending on the trends seen.
tl;dr I know. (Feel free to blame me if you lose blood because of reading this post 
) But just discovering and learning about this was such an eye-opener. Back in college circa 2005, ubiquitous computing was a far-off Sci-fi dream and buzzword, from my viewpoint. And now, we are here ladies and gentlemen. 
