How AI could be used to prevent diabetes

The Mealplanner Europe, a Finnish medtech company creating software that plans and organises nutrition for users, and MediSapiens, a developer and provider of genomic, biomedical and health data solutions, have partnered to develop an application for helping users in the prevention of onset of type 2 diabetes.

The development is funded by an EU grant from the Permides (Personalised Medicine Innovation through Digital Enterprise Solutions) project.

The joint project aims at developing a novel application which helps users to assess the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and plan their nutrition in order to prevent the onset of diabetes.

The application will be built to utilise novel AI-based methods for risk assessment. The projected launch of the application is during the second quarter of 2018.

“We’re thrilled to engage in this development with a solid, science-backed company working in the emerging field of personalised nutrition. This highlights our commitment to work for better future health through better and more efficient use of data.

“Type 2 diabetes is a global threat with rising incidence, and the potential healthcare cost savings of prevention of Type 2 diabetes are substantial” said Marko Kuisma, CCO of MediSapiens.

Type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic levels in the world population, including an alarming proportion of children.

Indicative is that globally, nearly 28% of women aged 30-45 are diabetic.

The focus of primary healthcare concentrates on treating the symptoms of the disease rather than prevention even though Type 2 diabetes can be reversed through proper diet, exercise and medication.

The technology being developed by The Mealplanner and MediSapiens is designed to prevent Type 2 diabetes rather than treat it after it has occurred.