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HEROES
ADAM THIELE
HEROES SWEET TALK
How a local teen used his diabetes diagnosis to build an app that’s helping patients everywhere
By Sam Kerrigan
l CHECK OUT SWEETSPOT
ON THE APPLE APP STORE
When 17-year-old Jake Zur was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in November 2020, something as simple as a Sunday morning doughnut stopped being a sweet treat and instead became something to be charted and analyzed. “I was managing my sugars on spreadsheets and making huge lists of everything I ate,” he recalls. “It just took way too long.”
Zur searched for a simpler solution, but none of the diabetes management tools he tried did the trick. So, the senior at The Benjamin School in Palm Beach Gardens decided to build his own app called SweetSpot–The Diabetes Manager.
Mixing technology with his diagnosis was a no-brainer for Zur, who plans to major in computer science in college and has spent his summer as a programming data analysis intern at Jupiter’s Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience. It took him about four months to develop SweetSpot, but he used his tech know-how—plus some medical research, YouTube videos, and family support—to bring the app to life. Available for free on the Apple App Store, SweetSpot offers a trio of functions: a carb calculator, a glucose log, and a meal planner (Zur’s personal favorite). He’s hopeful the app will help other people with diabetes and says that getting it into the hands of those who really need it was the sweetest part of the process. “I just want to get it out to [as many] people as possible,” Zur adds. “I’m always updating the app, trying to make it the best for users.” “The fact that I can possibly help other people learn to manage their diabetes with this app is great,” he continues. He hopes others who are struggling with a diabetes diagnosis will be empowered to manage their blood sugars and to understand that it’s a learning
l WATCH SAM’S “HOMETOWN process that takes practice. Sometimes they’ll be high
HEROES” SEGMENT MONDAY
MORNINGS ON CBS12 NEWS and sometimes they’ll be low, but eventually, Zur says, they’ll find their sweet spot. «
