FDA permits marketing of first system of mobile medical apps for continuous glucose monitoring

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a set of mobile medical applications that allow people with diabetes to share information about the level of glucose in their blood with doctors in real time using an iPhone. Such apps have existed but were not in broad use, in part because they had not met regulatory requirements. Dr. K. M. Venkat Narayan, professor of medicine and epidemiology at Emory University, said that the apps would be useful for certain patients, for example those with extreme fluctuations in glucose levels, but would not fundamentally change diabetes monitoring.