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Comment by ipsum2 | Hacker News Reader

Good on Alphabet for 1) releasing their findings and 2) not continuing the experiment for publicity purposes.

I'm wondering though, even if this were a success, how many people would it help? How big is the intersection of people who use contact lens (i.e. can afford them and don't find them annoying) & have diabetes?

In the US, there are 45 million people who wear contacts [0] and 30 million with diabetes [1]. Naively assuming independence, that means potentially 4 million people would benefit from this. Seems like small potatoes to Alphabet, even if they could capture 50% of the market.

0: https://www.cdc.gov/contactlenses/fast-facts.html 1: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2017/p0718-diabetes-repor...

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I suspect the number would be quite a bit larger. You have to consider how many with diabetes would be willing to wear contact lenses, and if you consider what the tradeoffs involved are, I think you'd find it's a rather large proportion.

Managing blood sugar how we do it now is a far larger bother than wearing contact lenses. I would guess that most diabetics who could afford them and did not have some physical aversion would use the lens monitors.

The alternative is primarily: draw blood from your finger every time you want to know where your blood sugar is. (There are other 'continuous' glucose monitors, but you have to keep a needle in you all day, and my understanding is they are inaccurate enough that you still often need to check sugar by drawing blood.)

> The alternative is primarily: draw blood from your finger every time you want to know where your blood sugar is. (There are other 'continuous' glucose monitors, but you have to keep a needle in you all day, and my understanding is they are inaccurate enough that you still often need to check sugar by drawing blood.)

I have been using Freestyle Libre for the last two years and only picked my fingers a handful of times in that period. It’s very accurate for me, perhaps a few (10-ish) minutes delay at most compared to fingers and toes, on par with measuring in the arm. And it’s a small fibre, not a needle that’s in the arm for two weeks at a time, doesn’t hurt at all.

The development in diabetes treatment have been tremendous the last years, which might be another reason as of why Alphabet is discontinuing this project.

Hmm, maybe time for me to look into CGMs again :) Any recommendation for how to go about getting the Freestyle Libre? I don't have insurance, so I'm guessing it's gonna be prohibitively expensive...

I'd have to double check, but my recollection the last I looked into the Freestyle Libre monitor was that the Reader cost about $150, and the monitors (the things that attach to your arm) cost somewhere around $100 to $150 a month. Not cheap, but significantly less expensive than the older style monitors, and reports are that the Freestyle Libre is much less uncomfortable then the old style monitors.

There're other contact-lense type efforts underway, listed in another article on the OP subject [1]. It's still a question whether a tiny layer of tear could yield a stable gluco measure.

[1]: https://www.mobihealthnews.com/content/alphabets-verily-shel...

It’s not really a needle but a cannula but close enough.

I don’t like being tethered between my sensor and a device. If I could be wireless I’d be more interested but the current devices are not there yet.

I’d rather see work toward the digital pancreas improve. Maybe in 5 years, but I’ve been saying that for 20 years.

Freestyle Libre doesn't require drawing blood. It isn't a CGM though because it won't alert you when the blood sugar level is not in the normal range.

> Good on Alphabet for ... 2) not continuing the experiment for publicity purposes.

They announced that they were starting their project for publicity purposes! Typically scientists announce their results, not getting a grant.

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