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