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On January 5, Abbott released a new feature within their Libre continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) app. Powered by artificial intelligence (AI), the new Libre Assist can help you figure out how meals will affect your blood sugar levels.
This makes one of the most difficult parts of diabetes a bit easier and more manageable.
What does the Libre Assist do?
With traditional food logging apps, you have to wait until after a meal and monitor blood glucose trends on your own. But Libre Assist offers real-time guidance before you even take a bite.
The app uses AI to predict how foods will impact blood sugar levelslike flagging certain foods or ingredients that could cause big blood sugar spikes. Then it suggests different ways you might be able to prevent those spikes by making different choices or even eating the same food differently.
How does Libre Assist work?
Using Libre Assist is easy. Just take a picture before a meal or write a description of what you’re planning to eat. Then Libre Assist identifies ingredients and helps predict how that food will change your blood sugar levels—all based on your current blood sugar reading, your glucose level trends from the day, time of day, insulin sensitivity at the time of the meal and other data collected from the CGM.
Using an easy orange, yellow, and green alert system, it will tell you:
Green: Minor impact on glucose levels
Yellow: Moderate impact on glucose levels
Orange: Major impact on glucose levels
Finally, Libre Assist makes recommendations that may minimize blood sugar spikes from food, such as:
Adding more vegetables to guacamole to increase fiber in a dish
Eating protein with complex carbohydrates like rice or potatoes to slow and flatten the post-meal spike
Swapping out a sugary dressing and replacing it with hot sauce for a lower carb count
Opting for unsweetened Greek yogurt in place of sugar-sweetened yogurt
Three hours after eating, you get a food rating notification to let you know how your meal impacted your glucose levels.
Real-time support means fewer blood sugar spikes
Libre Assist helps take the guesswork out of counting carbs and makes mealtime a lot easier.
“People living with diabetes need more than apps that just log food and fall short of helping them with meal decisions. That’s why Abbott built Libre Assist—a free and advanced predictive tool that delivers personalized meal guidance and works with our leading Libre technology to deliver real-time glucose insights,” said Marc Taub, vice president of technical operations for Abbott’s diabetes care business.
He continues, “For the first time, people have smart, in-the-moment support right at their fingertips to make a confident choice every time they eat.”
Libre Assist is only for people using a Libre CGM. It can be found within the Libre app by clicking on the Insights tab at the bottom of the page. The update to the app is free with no monthly fees, no additional purchases and no separate prescription required.
To get started, you can download the Libre by Abbott app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Additionally, the Libre app for watch is now available. Click here to learn more.
