The Best Diabetes Apps for Effective Management

If you’ve read my article on how smartphones are transforming clinical services, from diagnosis to treatment, then you probably know that diabetes easily falls into that category. Today, smartphones and mobile diabetes apps have simplified healthcare and can conduct clinical diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment. You can easily monitor chronic health conditions using your portable handheld devices. It doesn’t get better than that!

These best diabetes apps can help you relieve the burden, track blood glucose, keep food and exercise logs, manage carb counts, insulin doses, blood pressure, body weight, etc. Yes, these diabetes apps offer all-in-one healthcare packages to help you make informed decisions about diabetes. And the best thing about some of these diabetes apps is that they have free versions or are completely free!

Here are the best diabetes apps to help you manage diabetes, whether you have Type 1, Type 2, or gestational diabetes. And this selection is based on specific features, relevance, popular reviews, ease of navigation, compatibility, and available resources or information.

PS: APR stands for Apple rating, while ANR refers to Android rating.

1. mySugr (APR 4.7, ANR 4.6)

mySugr is a fun App that serves as a diabetes logbook. I mean, its motto, “we make diabetes suck less,” says it all. mySugr is more like a video game with a diabetes cartoon monster that keeps users engaged while being entertained. It’s a unique app with a clean, intuitive, and custom-enabled user interface and the ability to sync with glucose monitors. It has handy features that enable easy use, such as its 3-month blood sugar levels overview that helps you track your A1C.

Through mySugr, you can keep records of their blood glucose, track and monitor carb intake and insulin, and generate and forward reports to your healthcare service provider. You can download and send all relevant charts and data like post-exercise blood sugar levels to your doctors for further treatment. And this innovation can help you set reminders for you to follow up on your data results and performance.

It is designed to help Type 1, and 2 diabetics manage their health conditions and guide them through tasks and challenges to achieve specific treatment and therapy objectives. You can also input and track your medications and meals in real time.

It is a free download and has in-app purchases and upgrades but includes optional and advanced subscription services. The pro subscription, which goes for $2.99 monthly and $27.99 annually, has basic features like readings, syncing, reminders, tracking, and reports. And the premium plan, which goes for $19.99 monthly and $199.99 annually, has all the above features and additional perks like user personalization and in-app counseling. mySugr is available on Apple and Google Play Store.

2. Glucose Buddy (APR 4.8, ANR 4.4)

Glucose Buddy is another best diabetes app logbook manager that helps users manage and track their blood sugar, insulin dosages, carb intake, and A1C results. It can track food intake and physical exercises, as also blood pressure and weight. Like mySugr, users can sync their data and export and download reports for further use or medical appointments. It allows you to input your blood glucose, meals, meds, and track activities and patterns over specific periods.

It is a simple navigation tool with an extensive food database and lets you scan bar codes for food nutrition information from food products. Cool, right? Glucose Buddy is viewed by many as a complete diabetes tracker. After all, it’s supposed to be your buddy! And it has to push notifications and reminders to ensure that you never miss a date with your buddy. It reminds you of a specific time to check your blood sugar levels. Glucose Buddy has a chart display function that helps you spot trends and patterns, giving you insights into your blood sugar levels.

Glucose Buddy connects users to the Dexcom glucometer (G5 and G6) to maintain a thorough record of their glucose levels. It allows them to manually log numbers and track their steps, exercises, meals, and meds.

It has a free app version but includes ads and restrictions to the A1C calculator, among other premium perks. While the premium version is custom-enabled and has custom tags, filters, community support, and the A1C calculator, it only goes for $14.99 monthly and $39.99 annually. Compared to the value it offers and how precious your health is, I’ll say it’s a fair price.

3. My FitnessPal (APR 4.7, ANR 4.5)

My FitnessPal is a popular app that helps users track and locate food products with accurate nutrition information. This app recused the burden on people with diabetes in making easier nutritional decisions to regulate their blood sugar, and body weight, and monitor their diet. It helps you track your physical exercises, and health patterns, and make better food choices.

Let me mention that its exercise tracking feature can sync with other exercise-tracking devices, thus its high compatibility? This tracker syncs with your food choices and helps you meet your target weight goals. Overall, the app has a user-friendly interface that supports a wide range of food products.

My FitnessPal has a robust food database with over 6 million foods, ranging from farm products and restaurant foods to snacks. You can use it to review restaurant foods and scan bar codes at the food store or pantry. This is especially useful to people with diabetes who rely on fast foods due to their busy schedules, or you’re simply the restaurant type.

More exciting is its premium plan that allows you to conduct food analysis by examining their nutrient ranking. You can also set weight goals using a specific metric such as meals and workouts. And this goes for $19.99 monthly and $79.99 annually.

4. Medical ID (APR 4.7, 4.6 ANR)

As the name suggests, Medical ID is an identification application software that grants first responders within your locality access to your health data on your mobile lock screen. Users can record their medications, allergies, health complications such as diabetes, and even emergency contact using a Medical ID. Some people tend to underestimate health information’s relevance, but when it comes to diabetes, from diagnosis to treatment, every detail matters.

And you might probably be wondering how this app helps people with diabetes or why it’s even ranked among the top 10. The thing with Medical ID is its response to diabetes emergencies and even life or death situations, among others. It alerts first responders in your area about emergencies such as hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, or diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and ensures that you receive immediate and urgent care.

And here’s the beauty in simplicity. Users can download a Medical ID and immediately create a health profile containing vital health information that first responders will need in an emergency. In this diabetes app, your profile may include your diet, medications, blood sugar levels, medical contacts, etc.

Medical ID is available for free for Google and Apple users.

5. Diabetes Connect (APR 4.6, ANR 4.4)

Diabetes Connect has various exciting features. It allows you to monitor and record your blood sugar levels, insulin, meds, and meals. And it allows you to also track your weight, blood sugar, blood pressure, insulin injections, meals, and meds, all from the comfort of your phone.

Also, it helps you analyze your glucose levels, meal data, and other relevant health information on a smart dashboard that displays your diabetic information. Diabetes Connect synchronizes your health information across multiple Android or Apple devices and creates graphs and reports that you can export, download, and present during medical appointments.

It has simple navigation and is specifically suited for Type 1 and Type diabetics. And you can personalize the app features to suit your needs and switch off other features to enable smooth interaction.

Diabetes Connect is a free app with in-app upgrades, but its ad-free premium subscription goes for $1.99 monthly, $16.99 annually, and $26.99 for perpetuity.

6. Beat Diabetes (ANR 4.7)

This app is particularly useful to newly diagnosed diabetics seeking to beat their new health status. Beat Diabetes app is a beginner-friendly app that brings you up to speed on your new diagnosis. With its 101 intro-beginner models, it has lots of educational information for people with diabetes. Its resources and information include best practices for food nutrition and physical exercises.

It is suitable for anyone with diabetes, especially those who were recently diagnosed. This diabetes app will help you learn about the health complications and update you on available treatment options. As a result, you’ll be able to understand the nature of your diagnosis and manage it better, with quality guides, information, and advice on managing sugar levels and weight.

Though Beat Diabetes is free with in-app purchases, it is available only on android.

7. Fooducate (APR 4.7, ANR 4.4)

Fooducate tracks your meals and your activities to monitor your progress and keep them within the range of your nutritional goals. It examines the quality of the food you consume and uses its in-built database and bar-code scanners to analyze food macronutrients such as protein, fats, and carbohydrates. It then assigns quality scores after analyzing the food nutrition quality.

Fooducate further provides explanations and gives recommendations from the pool of nutrition professionals and community support. It ensures that you make smart blood sugar management decisions.

This diabetes app helps you track and discover relevant food information, including added sugar content and hidden ingredients. Fooducate is free with in-app purchases.

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8. Diabetes: M (APR 4.6, ANR 4.6)

Diabetes: M is a logbook that offers you a nutritional log and tracking system with fitness app integrations and blood sugar level patterns. It allows users to calculate their insulin bolus based on their nutritional information and creates graphs and charts to ensure glucose control.

Diabetes: M helps you track your blood glucose through the help of a nutrition database and bar-code scanner. It also has time reminders and can sync with other devices, such as glucometers.

Like some of the other best diabetes apps are already mentioned, it is free with in-app purchases. Its upgraded ad-free version offers multiple profiles and a full food database with multiple sync features at $4.99 monthly and $49.99 annually.