Rethinking diabetes care: from managing blood sugar to living well

An international roadmap led by LIH envisions a future where AI and smarter treatments reduce the daily burden of diabetes and give people more “time in happiness.”

• Department of Precision Health
• Deep Digital Phenotyping Research Unit

A newly published landmark blueprint is set to serve as the global “North Star” for clinicians and researchers, mapping out a critical paradigm shift over the next quarter-century. Released by the Deep Digital Phenotyping Research Unit, this transformative roadmap outlines how – by 2050 – an “AI-human symbiosis” will handle the exhausting daily management of diabetes. By shifting the ultimate measure of healthcare success from cold clinical data to a person’s actual “Time in happiness”, this framework provides global health systems with a concrete, actionable path to follow starting today.

Living with diabetes today is a relentless, 24-hour job. While advanced tools like glucose monitors and insulin pumps offer precision tracking, they have paradoxically triggered a new wave of “tech fatigue,” leaving nearly a quarter of people with diabetes facing severe emotional burnout. Meanwhile, systemic constraints frequently limit clinic visits, forcing both clinicians and patients to spend valuable face-to-face time analysing data screens rather than focusing on personal well-being.

What is “Time in Happiness” and how will it redefine diabetes care?

To improve the situation for both people living with diabetes and clinicians, a multinational team of key opinion leaders led by Dr Guy Fagherazzi, Director of the Department of Precision Health of the Luxembourg Institute of Health, has published a transformative roadmap for the next quarter-century. Dr Fagherazzi emphasizes: “This plan was created in equal partnership with global patient advocates and international diabetes organizations, honouring the golden rule: “Nothing about us without us”.” Published in the prestigious medical journal Diabetes Care, this landmark perspective paper argues that the ultimate measure of healthcare success must fundamentally shift away from strict clinical metrics and focus instead on a patient’s “Time in Happiness”. The researchers define this new metric as a combination of three simple things: time spent completely uninterrupted by the disease, a genuine sense of emotional well-being, and receiving fair, dignified medical care. 

How will AI and smart tech change diabetes management by 2050?

Instead of an ultra-automated, cold future, the authors describe an “AI-human symbiosis” rooted in the power of precision health. Under this model, AI tools constantly analyse an individual’s real-time situation, allowing treatments to automatically and continuously adapt to their unique biological needs and daily circumstances.

By quietly handling this heavy lifting in the background, advanced algorithms, subtle wearable sensors, and “digital twins” (virtual replicas that can predict how a body will respond to food or exercise), will manage routine data tracking and insulin adjustments. This future toolkit also promises game-changing therapies like smart insulins, treatments to delay or prevent the onset of type 1 diabetes entirely, and medication schedules shifted from painful daily routines to convenient monthly or even yearly injections. By lifting this immense administrative and mental burden, the roadmap ensures that future clinic time can be reinvested into meaningful human connection, allowing healthcare teams to step away from their screens and focus completely on empathy, mental health support, and shared decision-making.

The ultimate aim is to maximize the time people with diabetes spend living happily and healthily, as much as possible, freed from the shackles of their condition, within a performing and humanistic healthcare system,

explains the study’s lead author Dr Guy Fagherazzi. 

How can we make future AI-driven diabetes care accessible to everyone?

The roadmap also serves as a critical call to action for policymakers, emphasizing that these innovations must be designed alongside patients and made universally accessible. Without deliberate changes to bridge the global digital divide and lower costs, the authors warn that advanced care might only benefit a privileged few. By establishing clear milestones for ethical AI governance, universal access, and data privacy by design, the framework ensures that this future is not just a distant dream, but an achievable reality where diabetes care truly adapts to a person’s life, rather than forcing their life to adapt to the disease.