You can be on Entrepreneur’s cover!

A Future Apple Watch Could Be Essential for Diabetics According to CNBC, Apple has a secretive team working on blood sugar monitoring.

By Daniel Cooper

entrepreneur daily

This story originally appeared on Engadget

Aol via engadget

Apple is quietly developing a sensor that can monitor a person's blood sugar levels continuously and non-invasively. If successful, the technology will be integrated into a future version of the Apple Watch to help people with diabetes manage their condition. At least, that's the scuttlebutt being slung around by CNBC, which claims the project was set up by Steve Jobs before his death.

According to the report, Apple has quietly hired an anonymous-looking office building well away from its HQ for engineers to work in secret. It's believed that the company has been so successful it is already running trials of the sensors at "clinical sites" in San Francisco's Bay Area. In fact, progress has been so encouraging that Apple has already hired consultants to help it navigate the torturous process of getting FDA approval.

There are a number of practical issues to overcome, including the fact that using optical sensors to read blood glucose is hard. The world is littered with the bodies of companies that have tried -- and failed -- to use noninvasive monitoring for this particular issue. HealBe's GoBe, for instance, promised to count your calorie intake without penetrating the skin, and we know how well that went.

Right now, the only effective way to continuously monitor someone's blood glucose level is by inserting a sensor below the skin. Continuous glucose monitors often use an internal sensor that connects with an external transmitter that's held, for instance, on the stomach, tricep or thigh. Even new wearables like KTrack use tiny needles that burrow into the skin in order to work.

According to statistics from the World Health Organization, there were 422 million people living with diabetes in 2014. That's up from 108 million in 1980, a staggering increase for a disease that is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, stroke and heart attacks. In addition, the better part of four million deaths per year can be directly attributed to diabetes-related conditions.

If Apple can, somehow, innovate where so many others have not, then it will make the number of people who have reason to purchase a Watch increase exponentially.

After training to be an intellectual property lawyer, Dan Cooper abandoned a promising career in financial services to sit at home and play with gadgets. He now serves as Engadget's associate European editor.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

Editor's Pick

Business News

Mark Zuckerberg Told Meta Engineers to 'Figure Out' Snapchat's Privacy Protections: 'We Have No Analytics on Them'

Recently unsealed court documents detail "Project Ghostbusters," Meta's project to work around Snapchat's end-to-end encryption to intercept data.

Business News

Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Multibillion-Dollar Crypto Fraud

Southern District of New York Judge Lewis Kaplan said that the loss amount to the victims of Bankman-Fried's crimes surpassed $550 million.

Growing a Business

The Brand Whiz Behind Sun Bum Is Famous For Making Boring Products Fun. Then, This One Stumped Him.

Everything Tom Rinks touched turned to gold until he took on a brand launch at Target that fizzled. Then, he found a creepy doll on Ebay, and he saw a way forward.

Thought Leaders

How To Improve Your Soft Skills and Emotional Intelligence in 7 Easy Steps

Using these simple but effective approaches will help a person in their business, life and relationships.