App with dieticians on call to help diabetics make better food choices
Dr Yau Teng Yan, Chief Medical Officer of Holmusk, a digital health start up that developed a mobile app that helps diabetics manage their lifestyle. Photo: Rajendran Nadarajan/TODAY
SINGAPORE — A locally-produced app is aiming to make individuals’ fight against diabetes less of a lonely battle, while connecting diabetics directly to dieticians who will coach them on food choices, one meal at a time.
Created by two-year-old start-up Holmusk, the GlycoLeap app allows users to send photographs of their food, which can be tagged to a restaurant or hawker stall. Users will receive food ratings and feedback through a chat function within an hour.
And instead of urging diners to lay off dishes like laksa or chicken rice, the dieticians offer simple tips to make the dish healthier. They also give pats on the back when consumers make a good tweak the next time they feast on the same dish.
For instance, laksa fans may be advised to have more cockles and eggs instead of the fishcake, which has “32 times as much salt as plain fish”. Chicken rice lovers may be advised to ask for plain rice instead of the usual option, which contains 1.5 teaspoons of chicken fat.
The app comes with a price tag, however — S$272 for a year-long plan or S$34 for a month’s use.
There are plans for future versions to include a social element that allows users to interact with one another and share their experiences and challenges, said Dr Yau Teng Yan, Holmusk’s chief medical officer.
Holmusk is thinking whether to integrate different users’ food scores to eventually build a “food map” showing places that users have been to, along with the dieticians’ feedback.
Five dieticians at Holmusk’s Ayer Rajah office are currently serving “several hundred” active users on the platform, said Dr Yau. Each of them can respond up to 80 patients a day — 10 times the volume they might service in a traditional setting, where consultation and charting a meal plan takes 30 to 40 minutes each time.
Development of the app began in 2015 in response to what Dr Yau called the “high intensity, low frequency” care regimen here, where diabetes patients are required to see the doctor only every three to six months. He felt it would be more effective for someone to check in daily on patients, motivate them and give them support.
The app, launched last September, is now being used in a research study involving some patients at Tampines Polyclinic.
Holmusk aims for users to improve their body weight by 5 to 7 per cent in six months, and improve their diabetes control marker — the HbA1c — by 0.5 to 1 percentage point, which is equivalent to the effects of medication.
Hotel concierge Albert Koh Lye Heng, 63, who has been using the app for more than a year now, said his weight has gone down from 77kg to 70kg. His “very high” HbA1c of 13 per cent has dropped to 8 per cent — without having to give up local dishes like nasi lemak, char kway teow and carrot cake. It was the most significant improvement in his 22-year diabetes journey and Mr Koh said the praise and good ratings via the app kept him motivated.
In the past, he was referred to a dietician only when his HbA1c numbers shot up during quarterly check-ups at the polyclinic. He received “very generic guidelines” on what he should be eating, he said.
Last month, an adapted version of GlycoLeap, called SuperLeap, was launched in partnership with the Health Promotion Board to tackle childhood obesity. It aims to recruit 700 overweight children and families on the platform by the end of the year. Wong Pei Ting
