There are many affordable smartwatches with comprehensive health functions on Amazon. A study shows that the values are sometimes fictitious.
Many smartwatch manufacturers advertise blood sugar monitoring – extreme caution is advised here. (Source: Milkos / depositphotos.com)
- Amazon and other retailers advertise cheap smartwatches with blood sugar monitoring.
- A pilot project tested two affordable models.
- The result is sobering, because the values seem to be fictitious.
It is the dream of people who suffer from diabetes: measuring blood sugar levels without taking a blood sample. This is also the goal pursued by smartwatch manufacturers, as they have been given more and more health functions in recent years. If you search for watches with glucose measurement on Amazon, for example, you will quickly find what you are looking for.
Computer watches that are supposed to be able to measure blood sugar are advertised for less than 40 euros. And some of these sell more than 1,000 times a month. For diabetics, the purchase can be risky.
Researchers at the Institute for Diabetes Technology expressly warn against the use of smartwatches that are advertised with such measuring technology. At the moment, optical methods for measuring blood sugar cannot provide medically relevant results – there is no market-ready method of this type yet.
Pilot test brings clear results
In their pilot study, the results of which the researchers have published on diabetologie-online, two smartwatches were tested that had previously been ordered from the mail order company Amazon. According to the manufacturer, these were not medical products and the measurement results were not suitable for medical purposes. Nevertheless, the watches were advertised as being able to measure blood sugar levels.
The smartwatches were worn by a person with type 1 diabetes on two consecutive days. On the third day, the watches were then attached to a banana. The result: the recorded glucose levels were almost identical on all three days, even when the smartwatches were attached to the banana.
No real measurement
The researchers suspect that the smartwatches display a fixed glucose profile that depends on the time of day and is intended to resemble people without diabetes. A real measurement of blood sugar levels has obviously not taken place.
There was apparently a similar case report in Switzerland recently. A woman with type 2 diabetes reported being surprised by high glucose levels. The doctor’s findings were in stark contrast to the values displayed by her smartwatch.
Check the measurement function of the smartwatch
At the end of their study, the researchers give a useful tip for buyers of such a smartwatch. If users vary their meal intake throughout the day, the watches would have to detect glucose peaks at different times. If this is not the case, the smartwatches would probably not have a measuring function.
In recent years, smartwatches have been given more and more health features. For example, it is now possible to detect atrial fibrillation, falls and much more. The major manufacturers are also researching blood sugar measurement with smartwatches, but have not yet been able to develop a market-ready process. The hope here lies in artificial intelligence.
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