AUGUST 6 • 2020 | 37
HOMECHEF
homechef.com
Overall favorite. Binder
holds colorful recipe
cards. Clear directions.
Appreciated being told
the cooking difficulty and
spice levels. A “storage
timeframe” provided
guidance to make more
perishable kits sooner. Meat
and produce were first-rate.
Cornbread-crusted
Mahi-Mahi and Honey-
BBQ Aioli with corn on
the cob and sweet potato
wedges. Loved the fish and
sides.
Beef Meatloaf Marinara
with red pepper pesto
cauliflower. An easy
comfort meal.
Chicken Teriyaki
Bowl with bok choy and
edamame. Only “oven-
ready” dinner satisfied and
came together effortlessly.
Coq au Vin with Bone-
In Chicken. Classic French
dish included red wine and
mushrooms.
Sticky Honey Garlic
Sesame Steak Strips with
jasmine rice and baby bok
choy. Enjoyed cooking with
bok choy.
Chicken Piccata with
crispy onion-topped
tomatoes and zucchini.
Another delicious meal.
I
t’
s one of those things most
of us take for granted. Every
day, without realizing it, our
bodies make insulin, a hormone
that regulates blood sugar levels
and helps keep them from get-
ting too high or too low.
But the body’
s insulin require-
ments change constantly — and
that’
s where things get tricky for
millions of people with Type
2 diabetes who don’
t produce
enough insulin on their own. It’
s
hard for them to know from one
day to the next how much insu-
lin to take.
“The more insulin-deficient
we are, the sicker we are,
”
explains inventor
Eran Bashan of Ann
Arbor. “If you can
bring your blood
sugar levels to the
normal range, your
risk is no different
than someone with-
out diabetes.
”
The Israeli-born
engineer co-found-
ed Hygieia (the
Greek word for
health) with his
friend, endocrinol-
ogist Dr. Israel Hodish, who is
also Israeli. The duo first came
up with the idea while chatting
during a Shabbat dinner in 2007.
They spent years developing
and perfecting a high-tech insu-
lin management system called
d-Nav — an app that interprets
blood sugar readings and acts
like an “artificial physician” to
make clinical decisions
about how much insu-
lin a person should
take. The system
is the first FDA-
cleared technology
that does this.
“Studies have
shown 90 percent
of our users have
improved their
blood sugar levels
within 90 days of
starting the program,
” Dr.
Hodish said. “We help people
get the right insulin dose when
they need it.
”
Typically, diabetes patients
who take insulin visit their doc-
tor and are given a specific dose
until their next appointment.
In an ideal world, they’
d have
their blood work analyzed every
week — but that’
s not practical
or economical. So, the amount
of insulin they really need will
likely fluctuate before that next
visit. What d-Nav does is pro-
vide on-the-spot information
to make the necessary adjust-
ments from home. That comes
in especially handy now during
COVID-19 and the need for
social distancing and staying
home to stay safe.
“If you have diabetes, you’
re at
a high risk for COVID-19 com-
plications,
” Bashan points
out.
To use d-Nav, patients can
install the app on their phone
or get a device that has the app
pre-loaded. They use a finger
prick or another type of monitor
to measure blood sugar, which
the program uses to determine
the proper insulin dose. The
company offers a virtual (tele-
health) clinic or a physical clinic
in Livonia to take part in an
insulin management program,
but patients continue to see their
regular doctor for overall diabe-
tes management.
The app became available last
year through a pilot program
with Blue Cross Blue Shield
of Michigan. It is now a
benefit that’
s covered by
health insurance.
“Our goal is to
make insulin therapy
simpler and a lot
more successful,
”
Bashan says. “There
is so much you can do
today with technology.
”
Bashan, a husband and
father of a teenage daughter,
does not have diabetes, but
he recalls seeing his great-
grandmother using insulin in
the 1970s. Today, his mother and
grandmother both have diabetes.
“If I live long enough, I’
ll have
diabetes,
” he predicts.
According to the American
Diabetes Association, in 2018,
34.2 million Americans, or
more than 10 percent of the
population had diabetes; 1.5
million new cases are diagnosed
every year.
To use the d-Nav program,
patients will need a referral
from their physician. For more
information, visit hygieia.com.
Eran Bashan
Dr. Israel
Hodish
Steady
Sugar
Local inventors’
breakthrough app helps
diabetes patients manage insulin at home.
ROBIN SCHWARTZ CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Health
u-
o