Google Tests Smartphone Insulin Resistance Tracking

Your next blood sugar insight might come from a phone camera.

Google is testing whether AI can use smartphone images to reveal body-composition clues linked to insulin resistance, bringing a familiar device into a health area usually associated with glucose monitors and smartwatches.

If you track glucose with a CGM or smartwatch, your phone could eventually contribute clues about insulin resistance from a simple set of photos.

Phone photos can reveal clues BMI misses

Google calls the technology PhotoScan. Its AI model analyzes front and side smartphone photos to estimate body-fat percentage and where fat is carried around the body. Pixel phones were used during part of the study, according to Google Research.

Body composition adds information a height-and-weight calculation cannot capture. People with similar height and weight can carry fat very differently, including around the abdomen, where fat distribution is associated with metabolic risk.

Testing found that image-derived…