Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2017 Mar-Apr;21(2):334-340.
doi: 10.4103/ijem.IJEM_407_16.

Mobile Health Technology in the Prevention and Management of Type 2 Diabetes

Shruti Muralidharan  1   2 , Harish Ranjani  2 , Ranjit Mohan Anjana  2 , Steven Allender  1 , Viswanathan Mohan  2
Affiliations
Review

Mobile Health Technology in the Prevention and Management of Type 2 Diabetes

Shruti Muralidharan et al. Indian J Endocrinol Metab. 2017 Mar-Apr.

Abstract

Essential steps in diabetes prevention and management include translating research into the real world, improving access to health care, empowering the community, collaborative efforts involving physicians, diabetes educators, nurses, and public health scientists, and access to diabetes prevention and management efforts. Mobile phone technology has shown wide acceptance across various ages and socioeconomic groups and offers several opportunities in health care including self-management as well as prevention of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The future seems to lie in mobile health (mHealth) applications that can use embedded technology to showcase advanced uses of a smartphone to help with prevention and management of chronic disorders such as T2DM. This article presents a narrative review of the mHealth technologies used for the prevention and management of T2DM. Majority (48%) of the studies used short message service (SMS) technology as their intervention while some studies (29%) incorporated applications for medication reminders and insulin optimization for T2DM management. Few studies (23%) showed that, along with mHealth technology, health-care professionals' support resulted in added positive outcomes for the patients. This review highlights the fact that an mHealth intervention need not be restricted to SMS alone.

Keywords: Management; Type 2 diabetes mellitus; mobile health; mobile health technology; prevention.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

There are no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of studies included in the review
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. International Diabetes Federation. IDF Diabetes. 7th ed. Brussels, Belgium: International Diabetes Federation; 2015. [Last cited on 2016 Apr 05]. Available from: http://www.diabetesatlas.org .
    1. International Diabetes Federation. IDF Diabetes. 4th ed. Montreal: International Diabetes Federation; 2009. [Last cited on 2016 Apr 02]. Available from: https://www.idf.org/sites/default/files/IDF-Diabetes-Atlas-4th-edition.pdf .
    1. How mobile health can help tackle the diabetes epidemic and strengthen health systems: International Diabetes Federation (IDF) response to the public consultation on the European Commission's Green Paper on mobile health. Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2014;105:271–2. - PubMed
    1. Pan XR, Li GW, Hu YH, Wang JX, Yang WY, An ZX, et al. Effects of diet and exercise in preventing NIDDM in people with impaired glucose tolerance. The Da Qing IGT and Diabetes Study. Diabetes Care. 1997;20:537–44. - PubMed
    1. Lindström J, Eriksson JG, Valle TT, Aunola S, Cepaitis Z, Hakumäki M, et al. Prevention of diabetes mellitus in subjects with impaired glucose tolerance in the Finnish diabetes prevention study: Results from a randomized clinical trial. J Am Soc Nephrol. 2003;14(7 Suppl 2):S108–13. - PubMed