Physician here. Yeah, this device sounds like complete pseudoscience. To echo some of the other comments, non-invasive glucose testing is a 'holy grail' of diabetes research efforts and would be hailed as a major breakthrough--something covered by major media outlets and aggresively pursued by all of big pharma and biotech.
A red flag for me is the spontaneous development of something that would be completely groundbreaking. I mean all of the people involved are relatively unknown to the scientific community. There should be someone with some kind of credentials who tested and developed the device. A century ago, knowledge and raw materials was usually the limiting factor in discovery and a single genius scientist could make a giant leap in a field because there were a limited number of people total that had access to the knowledge and materials for furthering that area of interest. Today, nearly all of human knowledge lies at the fingertips of anyone with the internet. Everything from genetic sequencing to chemical engineering has become to prevalent and 'cheap' that almost anyone with a good idea have access to all the instruments necesary to achieve 'good science.' Now top this with the multiple Fortune 500 companies that are working to discover a means to non-invasively monitor glucose. Unexpected leaps forward in a scientific discipline, especially in medicine, should be met with great skepticism.
As the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
"To echo some of the other comments, non-invasive glucose testing is a 'holy grail' of diabetes research efforts and would be hailed as a major breakthrough--something covered by major media outlets and aggresively pursued by all of big pharma and biotech."
No, it wouldn't. It is currently extremely difficult to find money for medical devices. We have a working prototype of a non-invasive blood glucose measurement system, including several peer reviewed publications. Yet, it seems impossible to find venture capital for this. The pay off in IT und Web Start-ups is just much better.
Are you a company, a research group? Any references to those publications? A claim is much more credible when you are willing to give out proof to back it up ...
True, I am simpifying the issue. But medical device manufacturers should still be happy to take on new risks. See this article, even though it's an editorial:
It may be that existing products can simply be iteratively 'improved' and that doesn't cost much on the R&D side and is far less risky. I suppose market forces would favor the corporations that are protecting their existing revenue streams, at least in the short term. I would approach your university's IP office to discuss possibly funding the product. That's how large institutions do it. If you are in the private sector, then unfortunately it's up to you to 'sell' the idea to somebody. Maybe you could find some ventures capitalists who also 'coincidentally' happen to be diabetics?
This is one of those times where having identifiable information in your profile would help. Who are you that has such a device? Presumably it is patented. Perhaps this one [1] from MIT?
We've had ways to measure glicose non-invasively since the 90s, but since we're dealing with human lives - glucose monitoring is a matter of life and death for people with diabetes - such a device must be at least as accurate as finger-stick meters. None has come close so far.
This thing doesn't need to be anywhere near that accurate to be useful to someone. Fitness monitors are already pretty inaccurate but they're useful to get a general idea of your activity levels from day to day.
Trying to guess how many calories are in your food and adding them up each day isn't accurate, so a device that tries to measure it automatically based on your physiology only has to be that accurate. Maybe within 30% would still be useful to people tracking their fitness.
Obviously someone who is tracking their glucose or caloric intake for medical reasons should use FDA-approved medical devices and techniques for that, but those people aren't the target audience for this device.
I have no idea if this thing is legit or not, but calling it a scam because accurate non-invasive glucose measurement is a holy grail is completely missing the point of what the device is and what it's for.
There was even a glucose watch available on the market for several years in the US. It was pulled a few years ago, but the basic idea was sound. I do remember the device causing semi-serious skin irritation in many people though.
Yep, the glucose thing is suspect, however, my working theory is this is exactly what Apple are up to. Some of the people they've hired are in precisely this area, and it's a suitably massive opportunity to cause an industry wide meltdown, even if a complete longshot.
I'm obviously going to be seriously disappointed by the iWatch with expectations like that.
I have the same expectations if Apple were to come out with an iWatch. I'm also absolutely sure they won't be achieving that with a couple of piezos and impedance sensors.
> As the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."
It's "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", but it's not quoted enough regardless. So much pseudoscience could be avoided with reasonable expectations of proof.
for women with dense breast tissue is a sub population so it's not 3x as effective for everyone.
A much better example IMO is checklists. There cheap if somewhat demeaning and drastically reduce hospital infections among other things, but for various reasons there not in widesperad use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Pronovost
That's pretty clearly not the story here. This isn't some Robin Hood trying to save medical science by flying under the radar, but rather a shyster trying to avoid getting exposed.
There's a very simple way for Healbe to clear the air: release their supposed science. Publicly released scientific data has a much better chance of changing the status quo than a sketchy-looking crowdfunding campaign.
"non-invasive glucose testing is a 'holy grail' of diabetes research efforts and would be hailed as a major breakthrough--something covered by major media outlets and aggresively pursued by all of big pharma and biotech."
Oculus had the backing of some of the foremost leaders in 3D graphical technology, verifying their goals, solutions, product and direction. This does not.
Well that's because Occulus presumably isn't a scam. But I don't see how seeking crowd funding in and of itself makes something inherently untrustworthy.
> But I don't see how seeking crowd funding in and of itself makes something inherently untrustworthy.
It doesn't. Those are your words.
Those reasons are not because occulus isn't a scam, they prove why its not a scam. If the "Healbe GoBe" had provided such validations from industry professionals, we wouldn't suspect that its a scam.
Are crowdfunding platform going to be the home shopping channel of this decade? There seems to be a lot of resemblance with the miracle products with dubious claims and ripoffs that are more expensive than the original.
Non-invasive glucose monitoring is a holy grail of biomedical engineering. For diabetes management alone, it would be a multi-billion dollar product. This questions why it would be launched in this sort of way - the credientials of the people involved in the project would presumably allow them access to the kind of capital needed to launch a real medical device.
Also in that non-invasive glucose monitoring has had a considerable research effort behind it, it is suprising that the 'solution' would come without lots of press coverage of the science, let alone the product.
> Shipitsyn says that the impedance monitor in the Gobe can measure glucose by monitoring the water moving in and out of cells. Insulin opens up the cells when you eat sugar, he says.
No matter from what angle I try to make sense of that statement, I only arrive at it being bullshit.
At best, they have a standard grade sensor that, in a narrow band of perfect circumstances, makes a statistical guess that arrives at barely workable accuracy (article notes 80-90%) for a reading of something that is almoste entirely unrelated to your blood glucose level. Even if it was reasonably related, it would still not tell you anything at all about what you've eaten.
Water moves in and out of cells via osmosis in an attempt to equalize solute concentration on both sides of the membrane. This is a passive process not controlled by insulin. You can place a cell in distilled water and watch it grow or a saline solution and watch it shrink.
You've mentioned this twice in the same thread. Do you have any references? I would love to learn more, but you're being vague. Can you provide a link to your papers/your lab?
In vivo non-invasive monitoring of glucose concentration in human epidermis by mid-infrared pulsed photoacoustic spectroscopy
M.Pleitez, T.Lieblein, A.Bauer, O.Hertzberg, H.v.Lilienfeld-Toal, W.Mäntele
Analytical chemistry 85 (2013), 1013-1020
I would be more than happy to send you two publications an an executive summary for potential investors.
Email me at: hn.40.yooy@spamgourmet.com
This is a very different method (FT-IR spectroscopy) than the device the original article uses (measuring electrical impedance). It is less surprising to me that FT-IR would be able to give accurate results - I would think the challenge would to be to keep costs down and be robust enough to handle the abuses of a wearable device or even a home-use device. Best of luck :)
> Also in that non-invasive glucose monitoring has had a considerable research effort behind it, it is suprising that the 'solution' would come without lots of press coverage of the science, let alone the product.
I've been talking with a Gerontologist doctor who has been actively monitoring patients with diabetes in my town. She is an incredibly up-to-date doctor. She told me that any kind of therapy or approach that doesn't bring $$$ back to the pharmaceutical companies (involving long term treatment with supplies) is immediately abandoned. Research from major players is money-driven and nothing more. She mentioned a couple of cases which I can't recall.
I have high hopes for this project and for Google's Contact Lens[1]. Let's hope it flies...
any kind of therapy or approach that doesn't bring $$$ back to the pharmaceutical companies (involving long term treatment with supplies) is immediately abandoned
So... you're saying that they spend millions of dollars on clinical trials, and then they abandon these products? Because there have been plenty of trials for non-invasive glucose meters -- unfortunately, they all fail horribly at producing consistently accurate readings.
A person without diabetes should not be experiencing large excursions in blood glucose, so presumably this device should not be helpful for non-diabetic dieters.
It could have many uses. I'd like to know my exact insulin spike when I drink a coke for example. If insulin spike[1] can be correlated to glucose levels in the blood (which is theoretically possible) then trying to minimize the spike gives you a better chances of never getting diabetes :-)
Isn't that the whole theory behind Atkins and the low carb movement? Some dieters want to minimize their blood sugar spikes. But don't want to prick their finger to test that.
Anyways, I am thinking that these guys WILL deliver a device, but it won't be the miracle in technology everyone is expecting.
Yes, but generally speaking what I'm really saying is: Technologies like the one in question, that can increase the life quality of a large part of the population have a better chance of being developed by minor companies, group of individuals (as in this case) or outsiders (Google, Apple, etc.) rather than a Pharmaceutical company that has an already well established product in the market with a positive revenue stream.
Just because something doesn't have the recurring razor blade model of revnue (as glucose meters currently do), doesn't mean a company won't make money off of them. Now they give you the meter, but I get charged about $0.25/test strip, so about $180 of revenue/year.
I would easily part with $1000 for a watch or anklet like accessory that would measure my glucose without it being possible for me to forget about it. And I'm not even the best target market for it, because my sugar has never gone low. I had a coworker with a child with type I diabetes and they had to test her sugar somewhere around 10x a day. I'm sure a lot of parents would part with even more money than I would to avoid having to prick their child 10x a day.
Edited to add: Actually, there are likely to be sophisticated electronics anyway, enough to have a timer. The only reason I can think of not to have a subscription based model (i.e. it will work for 1 year for $250) is that it might turn off more potential customers and overall revenue could be reduced.
As others have said, non invasive monitoring is the holy grail and huge amounts of money are looking for a non invasive solution. But innovation here is likely to come from a start up that doesn't have the existing recurrent revenue model to be disrupted
But it's really hard. I think the chances of this particular one being a scam are pretty high
I really don't see why people are downvoting this comment. You may disagree with the poster's opinion but it is not posted in any way that is deserving of downvotes. Personally I agree that big pharma is much more interested in long recurring solutions to a problem then any one time permanent fix.
I don't think innovators have any dilemma. Most scientist would rather go for fame than money, or at least that's the feeling I get from the ones I know in person.
Christensen suggests that successful companies can put too much emphasis on customers' current needs, and fail to adopt new technology or business models that will meet customers' unstated or future needs; he argues that such companies will eventually fall behind
I saw this campaign a few weeks ago, felt very tempted, ultimately decided it was prudent to wait for the final product to be available.
The discussion here has raised some interesting points pro and contra. Much hinges on how well the research state of the art supports the company's claims. My default assumption is that people will jump to conclusions, one way or another, without doing enough homework.
Googling for key words in Healbe's brochure has turned up this academic paper which seems to confirm their method for noninvasive BGL measurement is at least a promising path:
"Report shows the device had correlation with actual glucose level by only 35.1% and in some cases it gave potentially dangerous measurements."
(Not exactly a confidence booster, but ten years is enough to improve a lot.)
Half an hour of homework has substantially decreased my trust in people who say it's flat out impossible in principle to do what HealBe claim to be doing.
ETA: further academic paper links I've posted in other comments:
They might have a correlation that is not good enough for diabetes (a life threatening condition) but good enough for dieting. That's also mentioned in the article.
Just wanted to pitch in regarding the first source - KTU is my Alma Mater and it stands for Kaunas University of Technology. In my country it's among the top universities and is highly respected. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaunas_University_of_Technology
Wow. If this turns out to be a scam, and IGG is doing nothing about it and saying "none of this stuff that looks terribly like a scam seems to be a scam so just go ahead and give them money", they should be liable.
Ok, if it's not a scam, I will happily eat my words. But if it is, I almost don't see the problem with the company itself but rather with how the platform is handling this.
> Ok, if it's not a scam, I will happily eat my words. But if it is, I almost don't see the problem with the company itself but rather with how the platform is handling this.
So if this is all a big scam you "almost don't see the problem" with the company trying to pull off the scam? The blame should lay squarely on the platform?
Are you serious?
Like, I understand that the platform should take responsibility for their vetting procedures, but to suggest they are more responsible then the company that is trying to pull the scam is fucking nuts.
I guess this is just another notch on the "fuck you got mine" belt that seems to be fairly common on HN. If you can think up a good business that doesn't have to deliver and you can get away with it or shift the blame to someone else, you get a pat on the back and are absolved of any responsibility!
Nobody trusts a Moscow-based company with a lawyer and PR office in the US. To see this, simply set up a single webpage with a Paypal button advertising for this product. You will get money, but probably not 1M$.
On the other hand, people seem to trust IGG and Kickstarter (at least to some extent). This can be demonstrated easily by observing that content which would – on a normal website – not collect any funding seems to do well on these platforms.
So, no, it is not entirely about criminal responsibility, but about a misuse of trust, trust that IGG has and which it conferred to some company by letting them use their platform.
To me this is very much like security breaches. If security breaches didn't exist, we wouldn't need security and we then wouldn't have security. The blame should be on the insecure software, not the ones abusing it (those get a different kind of blame; legal repercussions).
There's plenty of blame for everyone. Kickstarter/Indiegogo are basically scam incubators: they provide some basic help getting scams off the ground, connecting cons with dupes, and take their cut. The Scam Founders they support get to try out various pitches until they find one that works.
Calling this particular device "bullshit" misses the big picture. Considering how little we actually know (and I don't mean, "some studies on 200 people have shown"; I mean actually know) about how a healthy (as in non-sick) human body works[1], most of the products and techniques regarding health are pretty much bullshit, from miracle diets, super-exercises, wonder shakes and magic devices. This is not to say they don't perform their specific functions such as tweaking blood sugar or cholesterol levels, but that the relationships between those metrics and general health are more conjecture than knowledge.
What is happening here is something else altogether. It is a psychological phenomenon that some might say resembles religion, but in any case touches on a very primeval function of our psyche. Jonathan Haidt says it's the manifestation of the "purity" value among liberals[2]. Whatever this health craze is, it is far from scientific. Even people who are otherwise very careful in interpreting scientific research, change their lifestyle based on two studies on 300 people in total, that found a decrease of 40% in the incidence of a type of cancer that affects 1 person in 2000.
In fact, heated debates over findings of such dubious nature, and a far more dubious relevance to actual day-to-day living, is a common form "religious study" among the faithful, not unlike debates in Jewish Yeshivas.
Entrepreneurs – some of them believers themselves – rush to fill the demands of this As a pseudo-scientific religion's worshippers. There is nothing wrong with that. But it should be clear that they fill a very real, and very serious, psychological need, but one that has nothing to do with actual health. As such, calling a particular magic device "bullshit" is not unlike criticizing the efficacy of a particular batch of Virgin Mary icons.
[1]: To clarify: we know how it works, but not how each of a gazilion parameters – from weather to sleeping habits to genetics to diet to exercise – affects it.
This device purports to be able to measure glucose levels non-invasively. That is 100% verifiable, and most likely BS (to an accuracy that a diabetic would need).
Considering that diabetes is a real illness and that glucose monitoring is very important to keeping diabetics alive, this kind of thing doesn't get a pass by being "religious," like a magnetic anti-sea-sickness bracelet might.
The more concerning thing is the apparent lack of engineers that would be able to design, build, and mass produce such a device. The video consists of the video of the CEO at a desk the looks like it is prop, and stock videos. There is no evidence that this company owns office space or employs anyone, much less is capable of making such a device.
As someone in the fitness tech industry, the lack of info on the device should be telling. Indiegogo and Kickstarter are becoming full of new HW devices that promise amazing results with very little proof. I really wish these crowdfunding sites required a prototype to independently verify in-house prior to accepting the campaign. Sure it's not a perfect solution (as there could be exceptions of experienced HW developers needing capital to execute and build their realistic prototypes), but it sure would cut down on a lot of "make big promises and flashy videos, excuses later"
People haven't seen the device yet, but they're judging these guys primarily because they're Russian. If they were a YC-funded SV startup, this article wouldn't exist.
I would presume a bit of verification if it were a YC funded startup, or really any identifiable company with funding. Not a lot, but some. Ties to a reputable institution like a university, or a person known in a field, etc. would also be positive.
If it's relatively anonymous, it has to stand on its own with whatever proof provided; I'd accept a claim from my neighbor-of-N-years that "your house is on fire" a lot more than I'd accept the same claim in email from Nigeria, but if someone had a live photo/video feed of my house on fire, I'd believe even an anonymous source to a reasonable degree (modulo photoshopping, etc.)
It's fine to be skeptical. (I'm skeptical too.) But where's the line between being skeptical and outright calling something a scam and asking for IGG to shut the campaign down?
OK, let's assume that these guys created an amazing non-invasive glucose monitoring solution (unlikely). That doesn't tell you jackshit about calories. If I ate 3,000 calories of mostly fat and some protein, or I ate 300 calories of pure sugar, the insulin and blood glucose profiles would be drastically different. And the system would most likely think that I assumed more calories when eating the sugar.
This PDF has some test results and a more detailed description of the technology and science of the device. The article does not seem to reference it, so it was probably posted to the campaign after the article was written.
The PDF doesn't actually describe the technology or science as far as I can see. It does include quite a lot of handwaving. There are tables of results, but none independently verified.
From what I can tell, it all comes down to whether its claim to use impedance at different frequencies to measure blood glucose levels. There's no indication that this is possible. There's a lot of talk about secret algorithms, but algorithms are only as good as the data they can be fed.
I'm not too interested in the details of yet another probably snake oil medical device, but I am now curious about exactly what IndieGoGo's standards for fraudulent campaigns are. Can you say that it isn't IGG's responsibility to evaluate whether the product being sold actually meets claims that might be complicated and ambiguous? Is their side of the deal okay as long as this company actually manages to deliver some sort of device to the customers? Assuming they can verify that the company actually intends to deliver something, how ridiculous does it have to be before they say the campaign is invalid?
In other words, can I make and sell a space-alien repellant on IGG? If people bought it and are happy with their purchase, well, you can't prove that it isn't repelling space aliens, and IGG gets their cut too.
I've been following numerous fraudulent projects on Indiegogo and Kickstarter and have come to the conclusion that both are merely carefully shielded fronts for grifters. Both outfits should be taken down by the U.S. Attorney General until they can be regulated in their project vetting so as to eliminate or at least minimize consumer fraud.
Currently the more attractive a fraud brought to them is the more they stand to make from it so there is a strong conflict of interest between them and their users.
Someone needs to create a site that is a crowd funding wall of shame listing and reviewing projects that show the extent and profitability of fraud. There is KickScammer but it isn't very visible or complete at this point.
I just tried to get a refund, but realised that indiegogo doesn't hold funds like kickstarter do.
I understand that its my own fault for not waiting, but if Indiegogo doesn't do anything about this, I think their reputation could get quite badly damaged ...
Call your credit card company and do a chargeback. It's easy, straightforward, and if you tell them you accidentally put money into a scam and that there is $1M invested in this, they might do an investigation on their end.
It's not a total scam, but their use of the word 'exactly' is obviously fraudulent. They admit themselves to measurement errors. That being said, it might be good enough and the next version even better. Crowd funding is about funding things that disrupt. If you want to buy finished and complete, go to your local best buy..
I've participated in a number of kick starters, they all have delays and overhype. That's ok with me. I love bleeding edge tech.
The pattern on display here is a classic - make bold (but impossible) claims, attract a crowd of the faithful who want to believe, backpedal and prevaricate when called to back up your claims, collect as much hype and as much cash as possible and then never deliver.
It's the same pattern as was seen with perpetual motion machines several times last decade.
HHere's a question - what would make you change your mind?
How the fuck does obvious crapware get 7x its funding goal while Gooseberry is looking to not reach its goal in the next half month? Is it really just because the Blender Foundation tried to do their campaign on their own site?
Blender is doing a horrible job marketing this. First the video tells you nothing about the movie, from what I can tell it is going to be a movie about "close ups" strange characters faces, because that is what most of the clips were. No story or creative direction is mentioned. Why this movie is special, or important is also never mentioned, I think it has something to do with being "open". However they don't even explain what "open" is much less why it important, will the movie only use open source software, will the final movie be free to "share", will they give us access to all the model files? It looks like they try to explain it in the description but few people will bother reading it.
Secondly perhaps more importantly the choice to self host the campaign was very foolish, and probably fatal mistake. I don't know if this was because Kickstarter is not open source, or they didn't want to give Kickstarter 5%. The value of Kickstarter is it's network effect, (not the code to host a video, and manage credit card transactions). If they used Kickstarter they would be exposed to way more potential backers every day, as people backing other film projects look around for other similar projects. If they were on Kickstarter they would be the most funded Film and Video project with the money they have raised on their own and the in the top 10 of currently funding projects.
is this journalism? the first paragraph is about how he isn't believable because he has a russian accent yet works in the valley. seriously? Isn't the valley largely made up of foreigners pursuing crazy ideas? This is subjective and fishy armchair journalism at best. Even if the product is junk - there needs to be more substance than "i dont feel like its right because he has an accent and my 2-3 hours of research from my chair didnt show up much". Try researching some biotech companies that are in super-stealth mode - you will find nothing - yet they've often raised double digit millions in funding for their products from VCs...
I don't see that in the article anywhere (^F doctor ^F Petersburg).
I also don't sense any specifically anti-Russian sentiment. I think the references to Russia are to contrast the lack of presence in SF despite a claim to have one, or the lack of corroboration for the claimed references. I imagine the tone of the article would be the same if it was France or South Africa or Malaysia.
People located in non-US jurisdictions (particularly those countries which have a high level of corruption or can otherwise subvert international judicial processes) have less to fear in the way of legal consequences and therefore the likelihood of fraud is much higher.
A red flag for me is the spontaneous development of something that would be completely groundbreaking. I mean all of the people involved are relatively unknown to the scientific community. There should be someone with some kind of credentials who tested and developed the device. A century ago, knowledge and raw materials was usually the limiting factor in discovery and a single genius scientist could make a giant leap in a field because there were a limited number of people total that had access to the knowledge and materials for furthering that area of interest. Today, nearly all of human knowledge lies at the fingertips of anyone with the internet. Everything from genetic sequencing to chemical engineering has become to prevalent and 'cheap' that almost anyone with a good idea have access to all the instruments necesary to achieve 'good science.' Now top this with the multiple Fortune 500 companies that are working to discover a means to non-invasively monitor glucose. Unexpected leaps forward in a scientific discipline, especially in medicine, should be met with great skepticism.
As the saying goes, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof."