Man with diabetes develops app to help manage his disease

Peter Lucas suffers from type 1 diabetes and wanted an app that would help manage his disease. With the help of his girlfriend, Christina Kildentoft, who is a nurse, he created Hedia, an app that helps him and other diabetic patients deal with their disease.

In 2010, at age 27, he was diagnosed with diabetes. When he was first diagnosed with this condition, he wanted it to be easier to live with the diagnosis without having to make many calculations himself. "I found it extremely frustrating that there was no kind of assistant to do it for me", he said.

The app helps diabetic patients track their food intake, activity, mood and nudges them into making better choices. It also produces measurements to make sure that the users are on the right track — meaning that their blood glucose levels (BGL) reflect what has been set as a target. The app also “remembers” the insulin level that’s in the user’s body, so if it detects a risk for him or her to have a low BLG at a particular moment, it can recommend the precise food intake to avoid hypoglycemia, which is typically the consequence of a low BGL.

Peter was raised by a father who was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 27 years old as well. "I’ve seen him going through insulin shock a few times, and I’ve seen these hard times diabetes can give to a family. When I was diagnosed, I did the same mistakes my father did, and I was struggling with the condition. So my co-founders and I really created Hedia based on a personal need. I needed something that could help me live a normal life, do the things I love to do, spend time with my family, enjoy a good dinner without thinking about my condition all the time — about how much insulin there is in my body, about how this will affect my BGL, about whether these are too high or too low, etc. Hedia takes away some of those issues", Peter explained.

Since then, the app has received several prizes such as the Danish Nordic Startup Awards in the HealthTech category.

Hedia is free and is available for iOS and Android.

Adapted from: https://techsavvy.media

More info: https://www.hedia.co/
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