Your Eye May Know Before You Do: #AI #DiabetesScreening From a Single Photo @BioTransportAI

We spend a lot of time in our field talking about the downstream consequences of diabetes — the ulcers, the amputations, the long slow decline that starts quietly in the periphery. But what if we could catch the signal earlier? What if the eye — quite literally — could tell us something the foot hasn’t whispered yet?

A Pasadena-based group called BioTransport Systems Development has built a straightforward tool that does exactly this. Upload a close-up photo of your eye, answer a few basic questions — age, sex, any known health conditions — and an AI algorithm assesses your diabetes risk. No needles. No lab. No fasting. Takes less than a minute.

You can try it yourself here.

Now — a few important caveats. This is a preliminary screening tool, not a diagnostic. The team is clear about that. The final call always belongs to a qualified clinician. But as a concept, this sits right at the intersection of what excites me most: consumer-grade technology lowering the barrier to detection. The idea that your smartphone camera might one day be a first-pass screener for metabolic disease is not science fiction anymore. It’s a URL.

We’ve seen analogous work with retinal imaging and AI in diabetic retinopathy screening — FDA-cleared devices have been in play for years. What’s interesting here is the simplification. Not a fundus camera. Not a clinic visit. A photo you take yourself.

They’ve also built a parallel tool for anemia screening from eye images, which suggests a broader platform play using anterior segment photography as a biomarker surface.

Whether this particular tool reaches clinical-grade accuracy at scale remains to be seen. But the direction is right. Move screening upstream. Make it free. Make it fast. Make it something a person can do at home before they ever develop a wound on their foot.

We talk a lot about the ZIP code lottery in amputation. Tools like this could help change the odds.

Here are some other items where the eyes and sole meet!

Implementation of corneal confocal microscopy for screening and early detection of diabetic neuropathy in primary care alongside retinopathy #screening: Results from a feasibility study #DiabeticFoot @ALPSlimb

#DiabetesScreening #ArtificialIntelligence #DigitalHealth #Diabetes #Screening #RetinalImaging #AI #ConsumerHealth #PreventiveMedicine #LimbPreservation #DiabeticFoot