5 Best Diabetes Apps to Track Blood Sugar, Calculate Food, and Write Logbooks
About 425 million people in the world have diabetes, with 30 million in the US itself. Whether you’re newly diagnosed or you have lived with diabetes for years, these apps and resources can help you take care of yourself.
There are a few essentials to diabetes management that most of the top apps cover. For example, they will monitor blood sugar, create a logbook of your insulin dosage, track meals, and so on. Even if they’re sounding similar, try out the different apps because you never know which one is perfect for you.
Warning: When it comes to any medical topic, it’s important that you don’t rely solely on websites like MakeUseOf, or search for medial info online. Instead, you need to seek the help of medical professionals who can guide you. Based on the doctor’s advice, use the information in our article to make the best choices for you.
MySugr (Android, iOS): The Best Diabetes Management App
MySugr is the most recommended app for diabetics today, and a huge hit among Reddit communities about health. It has all the features you would need from a diabetes tracker.
The app is mainly a logger for blood sugar, medicines, meals, and other data. It’s a simple matter of keying in the data every time you do any diabetes-related activity, like checking your sugar level. The app includes reminders to check blood sugar so that you don’t forget about the task or about filling the data.
The ease of use is what sets MySugr apart from the rest. It’s easy to understand how to add things to the app. It’s easy to see your data in the form of charts. The app even distills it into simple English for you.
MySugr also has several other features, like a bolus calculator, which figures out how much of an insulin dose you should take. But the free version of the app only lets you calculate this five times before paying for future calculations. Try it out and see if such features are worth paying for.
Download: MySugr for Android | iOS (Free)
Diabetes:M (Android, iOS): Easy App for New Patients
As easy as MySugr is, it’s a little sad that it puts the bolus calculator behind a paywall. For those who are newly diagnosed with diabetes, figuring out the right insulin dosage is a major struggle. Diabetes:M is an all-in-one app that makes life easier for new diabetics.
The logbook tracks all your data, especially the glucose level, at multiple points of the day. You’ll need to add it manually, of course. This is helpful for the bolus calculator too.
To figure out the right insulin dose, you’ll need to add what you’re eating, how much you’re eating, and the measured blood glucose. Diabetes:M uses a database of food products with pre-determined levels of carbs, proteins, fats, and calories. It’s not perfect, but it’s decent enough, much like how fitness apps count calories. Once it has the data, it will calculate the best insulin dose.
Using it for the bolus calculator also has the additional benefit that you track everything you are eating, which is always useful for a doctor. You can view that data in the form of simple charts for free on the phone. But if you want to export them into Excel or PDF for the doctor, you’ll need to buy the premium version of Diabetes:M.
Download: Diabetes:M for Android | iOS (Free)
Center Health (Web, Android, iOS): Smart AI for Diabetes-Related Warnings
Center Health is fairly new on the market and so it has bugs and issues to fix, but with time, it could end up becoming the best app for diabetes management. It has everything that MySugr and Diabetes:M offer, but adds two more elements.
The one you should care about is Aria, a smart AI to analyze your logbook and warn you of trends. It’s more than just a reminder. For example, it will send you alerts when the injection you took might lead to you being hypoglycemic. Or it will look for patterns in your usage and point out when something is off. These are the types of things that might one day help AI diagnose health issues.
The other part that makes Center Health impressive is an add-on glucometer called the Nano, which plugs into your phone. The glucometer tests your blood sugar level and records it directly in the app. You no longer need to log it each time. But of course, this is a paid gadget, and you pay for the strips too.
Center Health also does one other thing right that we love: it plays nice with other apps. Whether you use Dexcom, Medtronic, Fitbit, Google Fit, Apple Health, or any other system, Center Health supports all of them to ensure your data is tracked and synced across platforms.
Download: Center Health for Android | iOS (Free)
AADE’s Checklists and Guides (Web): Printouts to Manage Your Diabetes
The American Association of Diabetes Educators is largely meant for medical professionals seeking to help patients manage the disease. But the site has a few resources for the patients directly, and they’re invaluable. There are two pages you should check.
The AADE Self-Care Behaviors page is a series of guides for people living with diabetes. The guides are divided into Healthy Eating, Being Active, Monitoring, Taking Medication, Problem Solving, Reducing Risks, and Healthy Coping. Go through each for valuable information that you can trust.
Then, check the Tools and Resources page. The AADE has a series of checklists and handouts to navigate common diabetic issues. This includes everything from medicinal checklists to printouts for healthy holiday eating. These small steps will help in living a better life.
We recommend you always seek out a medical professional for health advice, or only refer to trusted medical organizations like the AADE. If you have a small query that you don’t want to bother a doctor for, then here’s how to safely research health issues online.
Diabetes Daily (Web): The Best Forum for Diabetes Discussion and Help
With any chronic disease, it’s best to get yourself a support group for the long haul. Seek help in real life, and seek help online through communities and forums. Diabetes Daily has made a name for itself as one of the best forums for diabetics.
There are different sub-forums to discuss the different types of diabetes, as well as specific parts about the experience, such as daily living factors, complications, non-traditional treatments, money, and insurance, etc. Hop on, be polite, and follow the general rules of asking strangers for help on the internet. You’ll gain some cheerleaders and supporters in no time.
Apart from the forum, the Diabetes Daily website also has essential information about the disorder. You can read the latest news about things related to diabetes, get beginner’s guides and resources, and plenty of information related to diabetic diets.
Make Sure You’re Eating Right
Apart from monitoring your health statistics, the biggest daily task of living with diabetes is managing your food intake. What you eat, and when you eat it, is going to affect your health more than any other aspect.
That’s why we put together a simple guide to cooking for diabetics. Here, you will find websites and apps that give you diabetic-friendly recipes, as well as YouTube channels and tips. Don’t miss this one.
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