By Jamie Tueth, DO

“There’s an app for that.” Per Apple’s famous trademark, there are many mobile apps that help patients manage and improve their health, from logging blood sugars for diabetes management to tracking daily calorie counts to assist with weight loss. However, with so many apps available, it can be difficult to know which ones truly offer features to improve your health. Here are some of my favorites for a variety of conditions.

Diabetes Management: Glucose Buddy, Glooko
For diabetes management, I recommend Glucose Buddy. This free app allows patients to enter their blood glucose, carb consumption and the amount of insulin they are using. It’s easy to enter the date and time when the blood sugar is checked, in addition to whether the value was before breakfast, after dinner, or whenever. There is also a place to add notes. For example, a patient might note that a high glucose value was due to eating dessert. I also like that you can print out your readings for your physician.

Another app I like is Glooko, which lets users download their glucose readings directly from a glucose monitor, creating a blood glucose log. Users can also log insulin and carb counts on this one. It’s a free app, but you do need to purchase the Glooko MeterSync Cable to download glucose readings into the app.

Healthy Eating/Weight Management: GoMeals and Loseit!
For diabetic patients or anyone desiring to eat healthier, I like GoMeals. This is a database that includes the nutritional values from the foods you eat, including those from many popular restaurant menus. It also has a restaurant locator that helps you find nearby restaurants, along with their menu and nutritional values. It lets users search from food items to see the number of calories, carbs, protein, etc. Users can track their daily intake of calories and the distribution of carbs, fats and proteins to “Today’s Plate,” which makes people more aware of what they are eating and the areas of nutrition where they can improve.

I recommend Loseit! for people who want to lose weight. Loseit! is a database that allows you to log meals and track nutrition values (protein, fat and carbohydrates) as well as track any exercise. It even has a barcode scanner to log packaged food items. It sets a personalized daily calorie allotment for your personal goals. This app makes it easy to see exactly what you put into your body compared to the number of calories you are burning on a daily basis, promoting awareness and healthier eating habits. Another neat feature is that friends can also join this app, and you can challenge each other via the group challenge to achieve a goal together, creating some competition to keep you motivated.

Blood Pressure Control: iBP Blood Pressure
For the hypertensive patient aiming for better blood pressure control, there is iBP Blood Pressure. This is an easy-to-use app that lets you log your blood pressure and heart rate. You can then view your results in a graph, either linear, bar, or table format. The app allows users to indicate a time of day for the reading or add notes, such as if you forgot to take your medication(s) that day. You can forward your logs to your physician via email.

Smoking Cessation: Livestrong MyQuit Coach
For the smoking patient, I suggest Livestrong MyQuit Coach. This app has a personalized quitting plan where you can enter your motivations for wanting to quit smoking and track your daily cigarette use, in addition to your current daily allowance of cigarettes per your personalized plan. It also shows helpful quitting tips and facts, motivating patients to stop smoking.

On the other hand, there are some apps out there I would stay away from. I am leery of any app that claims to diagnose a patient based on symptoms. If you have symptoms that concern you, talk to your physician, as sometimes the differential can range from mild conditions to life-threatening ones. It is always safer to be diagnosed by a physician rather than an app.