Weight loss and obesity are concerns shared by diabetic patients and the lay public. These search terms, "weight loss," "obesity," generate 72M and 30M webpages, respectively. "Diabetes" as a search term generates 104M webpages. According to Google Trends, "weight loss," " diabetes" terms are searched 7x more than "obesity." In 2016, there were 59,000 medical health apps. It is expected that at the end of 2017, apps will reach $26 billion in revenue. Are these apps useful to our diabetic patients?

Purpose: To evaluate free weight loss droid apps in terms of the Diabetes Self-management Education and Support Guidelines.

Methods: Using Google Play to find the most droid downloads in free weight loss apps in 2017. Droid apps downloads are documented by Google Play whereas iPhone apps' downloads are not available to the public. We included only those apps that emphasized weight loss. We excluded those apps with malfunctioning web on a daily basis.

Results: The majority of the apps have calorie counting. However, 4/10 are lacking in basic information about BMI; only half of the apps have a med log/diary. None include psychological moods.

Conclusions: Weight loss mobile phone app are commonly used by the general public not only diabetic patients. Most do not track fasting blood glucose, lipids and blood pressure. There is room for improvement for this growing field of health apps and diabetes.

graphic
View largeDownload slide
Disclosure

G. Wu: None. L. Billard: None. V. Ngo: None. A. Doan: None. E. Muro: None. B. Le: None.

© 2018 by the American Diabetes Association.
2018
Readers may use this article as long as the work is properly cited, the use is educational and not for profit, and the work is not altered. More information is available at http://www.diabetesjournals.org/content/license.