NEWTON, Mass. — A Newton teenager has been living with Type 1 diabetes since he was 17 months old.
Aaron Prager is the first to admit it isn’t always easy managing life with the disease.
“Diabetics spend hours of their day just worrying about diabetes itself,” said the 17-year-old. “It takes away from their time to live.”
He just won a national competition for an app he created to help diabetics manage the disease more efficiently.
“One of my inspirations for the app is I wanted to give diabetics back as much of the time in their day, so they have as much time to live as possible.”
The app is called Boost-T1D.
“I describe it as a diabetes management platform that combines the technical aspect of taking care of diabetes with the psychological aspect of taking care of it.”
Now a rising senior in high school, he started building the app a couple of years ago.
The app monitors blood sugar as well as other important health indicators.
The app isn’t allowed to suggest specific changes in behaviors or medications, but it identifies patterns for a person to think about.
“Most diabetics use a service called Night Scout which my app connects to, and that service just transfers all of their sugar data, all of the insulin and carbohydrate data to the app, so I can do those calculations with that data,” explained Prager.
Another tool helps users get quick and accurate assessments of different foods.
“You can take a photo or take a picture, and it will tell you approximately how many carbs there are in the food.”
While the app itself is impressive, especially since it was created by a teenager, that’s only half the story.
Prager recently won the Congressional App Challenge for Boost-TID.
He beat 14,000 students from around the country to take the top prize.
“Honestly, I didn’t expect to win, so it was really surreal when he called me up.”
It was a triumphant moment for a young man who is accustomed to overcoming challenges.
Diabetes hasn’t stopped him from becoming an award-winning ballroom dancer.
His plan is to keep moving to the music and refining Boost-T1D.
“I think the main thing for me is to promote the app because I’ve seen how helpful it is for me and my friends and I want it to be helpful for people, more people than it is right now.”
The app is also trying to create community connections for people with diabetes.
A buddy system is being put in place to link people who are newly diagnosed with those who’ve been navigating it for a while.
The app is free and available on Apple.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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