Wouldn’t it be great if we all had something like a “check engine” light on a car? We could walk into the Dr’s office and they could quickly and accurately know what was wrong and how to treat us.

It’s not that far fetched of an idea. Scientists in Japan have developed “magic” BEANS (Bio Electro-mechanical Autonomous Nano Systems) that can be implanted into a body and light up in response to glucose levels. They’re still years away from being used in humans, but they present some interesting opportunities.

On one hand, they offer a quick and non-invasive way of monitoring glucose levels for diabetes patients. If you look at it another way, it could also be a nice way of getting patients to pay more attention to their health and remain adherent to treatment. After all, who wants to be exposed as not taking care of their own health?

For health care practitioners, it would not only offer a look at clinical status, but might provide some insight on how well the patient is going to adhere to any of their treatment recommendations. That kind of knowledge could go a long way towards guiding intervention and treatment approaches. Fortunately, we already have tools to help predict patient behavior in chronic conditions.

With insights like these available and clinical tools like BEANS coming in the near future, we’re quickly running out of excuses for the continued increase in lifestyle-related diseases.

Tags: Behavioral Change, Behavioral Insight, Behavioral Science, Diabetes Management, Metabolic Diseases, Patient Adherence