Diabetes and Obesity Management

The high prevalence of diabetes along with the poor health outcomes and the escalated costs of treatment and care pose the need to focus on prevention, early detection and improved management of the disease. Moreover, obesity, one of the greatest health challenges developed countries are facing, is strongly associated with the onset of serious and mortality related diseases such as diabetes, while its root causes are genetic predisposal and combination of lifestyle factors. Our research activities in the field of diabetes and obesity management are mainly focused on the following areas.

Development and Evaluation of Clinical Decision Support Systems

Predictive computer modeling is used to facilitate self-disease management and support healthcare professionals in clinical decision making, while simple and sophisticated analytics are applied in order to predict the evolution of patient’s health status.

  • Development of personalized and adaptive glucose prediction models for patients with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus applying sensors for Continuous Glucose Monitoring.
  • Design, development and evaluation of closed loop glucose controllers, as an important component of the Artificial Pancreas. We have developed and in silico evaluated a closed loop glucose controller, which has demonstrated increased adaptability and personalization capabilities.
  • Development of risk assessment models for the incidence of long-term diabetes complications, within the framework of the FP7 project titled “Models and simulation techniques for discovering diabetes influence factors - MOSAIC”.

  • Study of the complex etiology behind obesity by applying advanced classification techniques in order to identify genetic variations and/or factors related to nutrition that contribute to obesity’s variability. Work related with the FP6 project titled “Integrated polymer-based microfluidic micro system for DNA extraction, amplification, and silicon-based detection - Micro2DNA”.

Design and Development of Gamification Mechanisms

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Health promotion in people suffering from diabetes and/or obesity can be achieved through the design and development of gamification mechanisms. We aim at the design and implementation of a serious game as a means for educating, training, monitoring and supporting self-disease management.

Development of Tools and Services for Dietary Monitoring

Behavioral lifestyle habits in terms of diet and physical activity play a crucial role for the onset and the evolution of both diabetes and obesity. We aim at the development of a user friendly mobile application incorporating reliable computational algorithms able to estimate the meal content from meal screenshots and provide appropriate dietary and lifestyle advice.