Heroic Diabetes Founder Jaren Smith

Jaren Smith is on a mission to empower children with type 1 diabetes (T1D). “I aim to convince children with T1D and their families that when they manage their diabetes, they can live their full adventure,” said Smith.

About Jaren Smith, RN, BSN

Jaren Smith grew up in Shelley, Idaho, with a mother who had type 1 diabetes. When Smith was in high school, his father was diagnosed with acute necrotizing pancreatitis (NP), and though it was not alcohol-related, left him insulin dependent. Smith said as he saw the ICU nurses saving his father’s life, he decided on a career in the medical field. “It was a huge catalyst for me to become a healing presence for others.”  

Smith earned his nursing degree from Brigham Young University (BYU) and works as a critical care registered nurse in Boise, Idaho’s leading medical ICU. About a month into his new job working in the St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center’s ICU, Smith began exhibiting symptoms of type 1 diabetes.

Fortunately, his mother taught him the signs to look for: extreme thirst, frequent urination, exhaustion and blurry vision.

In addition, Smith said that he remembered having a foggy mind where he could tell something wasn’t quite clicking. “And then I felt tired to my bones. I actually took myself into the clinic and asked them to test my blood sugar, and they sent me straight to the emergency room.”

“It was a huge benefit to have that background with my parents’ support,” said Smith. “With the lack of resources that I found, I had to fight for my resources, and it kind of scares me to think where I’d be without that prior knowledge.”

Smith said they sent him out of the ER a couple of hours after his diagnosis with a few units of insulin and no training. “Looking back, I now see what a mistake that was. I had no prescription for insulin, no education, no websites, no suggestions for resources,” Smith said. “That was extremely difficult. I was just told that a doctor would call me.”

His healthcare team’s lack of staidness and urgency didn’t end there. “My first doctor told me diabetes was like gravity, and when I fell, I would fall hard,” Smith said. “He told me not to question his prescriptions until I had multiple chronic illnesses. While he did not mean that literally, it was highly discouraging.”

Smith was diagnosed in 2023, and by 2024, he had a plan in place to support others living with T1D.

President and Founder of Heroic Diabetes

Working in the ICU, Smith saw the devastating complications of unmanaged diabetes and decided to take action. With his background in nursing and public health (Smith was a teaching assistant at BYU), he knew that early education was critical.

“And early intervention, before the beginning of secondary diseases, is huge,” Smith said. “I try to help people in the ICUs when they’re at their emotional lows, and in some ways, it’s too late to prevent complications. That’s why I’m targeting children. We have to get to them early.”

Smith began researching how difficult the path was for parents of over 300,000 T1D children nationwide. “It doesn’t take long to find the gaps,” Smith said. “We have great resources becoming available, but getting those families in touch with those resources is challenging.”

Smith’s own experience empowered him to approach an existing platform called Heroic Game Day. “They’re a mature entity for education, and they’re already established.”

“They teach kids in an open world video game setting – life skills like leadership, communication, problem-solving, and coping. I approached them and got an exclusive license to use their existing platform in healthcare.”

Today, Smith is the president, founder, and lead video game educator for Heroic Diabetes.

Heroic Diabetes is Born

Smith said that he grew up playing video games but doesn’t consider himself an expert in programming. “Those teams already existed, so I’m the lead educator and president and meet with those teams regularly.”

The resources in the game are robust for teaching. “They’re very unique in the sense that their games are both fun and educational. We provide them with gamified missions that teach towards our primary learning objectives, and we can reinforce that learning with repetition through side quests and microlearning.” 

“We can simulate different problems they need to solve, like hypoglycemia, and we can even teach them how to read the interfaces of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) and insulin pumps.”

Heroics Diabetes: Gaming For Health

Transformative learning using the power of technology for good.

Heroic Diabetes gaming missions teach:

• Physiology
• Treatment options
• Nutrition
• Mental Health empowerment
• Critical thinking and problem-solving skills
• Creativity and Collaboration
• You’re not alone. Over 300,000 children in the US have type 1 diabetes.

ADA Innovation Challenge Recipient

Though just in its early developmental stages, Heroic Diabetes has already earned recognition from one of the leading diabetes organizations, the American Diabetes Association (ADA). In early 2024, Heroic Diabetes was recognized as one of the 15 finalists in the American Diabetes Innovation Challenge.

“We submitted our work very early, just after forming our company in April 2024,” Smith said. “I think we were chosen because they understand a solution like ours is pivotal. I think it’s significant they recognized our potential right from the start and selected us.”

A Leading Platform for Chronic Illnesses

“We see this becoming one of the leading platforms for chronic illness education for kids,” said Smith. “We’re starting aggressively with type 1 diabetes, and then we hope to move onto type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes for kids since it’s a growing issue. And we plan to get more experts onboard as we expand our curriculum.”

Smith said they are ready to launch and are now building healthcare modules for kids with diabetes. The game targets kids from kindergarten through sixth grade.

Parent Companion App

Heroic Diabetes also has a companion app to keep parents involved. In the parent app, parents can watch what the kids are learning, monitor the modules, and learn topics of interest. The game allows sharing of reports and information with educators in the clinics.

“We can even have the parents watch their own videos we create, so they’re watching messages of hope, hearing stories from other parents, and learning through technology,” said Smith. Also, when the parents watch on their app, the kid receives coins in the game. This means the kids gain knowledge as they help motivate the parents. “They’re a team in that sense.”

It Takes a Village

One of the most important aspects of the game is for the children to feel they are not alone with the disease. “Because it’s an open world, and the kids are running around their main village, their avatar will see other kids’ avatars in real-time, and they’ll see their peers who also have type 1 diabetes,” Smith said.

Knowing you’re not the only kid with T1D helps them feel less isolated. “Once they jump into a building where they need to accomplish a mission, then it’s just them, but in the main hub, it’s a safe online platform and a great way for these kids to make connections and share how they’re doing with each other,” Smith said.

Filling the Gap

Heroic Diabetes is a highly scalable learning tool with cutting-edge research that addresses basic T1D education. The game runs on anything with internet connectivity. Smith said, “We want to get it into every house with a type 1 kid.”

The game has the ability to assist lower socioeconomic families and patients. With resources outside clinic hours, Heroic Diabetes creates a social support structure and addresses basic problems that can lead to secondary illnesses.

“Patients with type 1 diabetes who don’t receive higher levels of education or who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are three-to-four times more likely to experience mortality within the next 20 years,” Smith said.  

Future Plans

Heroic Diabetes’ marketing plan includes a personal invitation from the ADA to become an education recognition program. “To my knowledge, no online game-based learning platform currently holds that status. So, we are on target to become the largest education recognition platform in the nation, which allows us to enter clinics for families accessing our resources through insurance.

Heroic Diabetes’ goal is to be accessible through insurance, with its education modules fully available in clinics within the next coming months. “Our goal is October 2024, and the very latest by the beginning of next year,” Smith said. “To get into the clinics, we’re patterning all our curriculum after the requirements to become an education recognition platform.”

ADA Scientific Sessions and T1D Screening

Besides being one of the finalists, Smith had an incredible experience at the 2024 ADA Scientific Sessions. “The research and the effort were impressive. We’re excited to be a part of all that.”

Smith was enthusiastic about a future T1D cure through stem cell therapy and also said the technology with pumps, CGMs, and the feedback loop was amazing. But he was most surprised about the advancements in diabetes testing, which was at the forefront of the conference.

The Importance of T1D Screening

Looking back, Smith says he wished he had known more about screening opportunities.

“I didn’t know about the need for screening until that conference. I had just finished nursing school and felt pretty up to date with standards in healthcare, and for such a common disease, I believe the largest autoimmune disorder in the nation, not to know that we can screen, and my mom has it—was shocking.”

Important Tip: T1D Strong is developing an accessible, cost-effective DNA test for type 1 diabetes, which is currently in the FDA approval process. 

Smith is a young father with a toddler, and he now knows they can screen him for T1D. He hopes the game can bring about T1D screening awareness. “We can get to parents through the kids. These kids’ brothers and sisters need to be screened, and we’re uniquely set up to teach that.”

“With medication like Tzeild, we can offer these families a way to delay the onset. I actually encouraged my brother to test, and he tested positive for the antibodies, so he’s in stage 1 of progression,” said Smith. It immediately helped my family. While it is not a cure, my brother now has a huge heads up compared to what I had.”

Advice for the Newly Diagnosed

When asked what Smith would tell someone newly diagnosed with T1D, he said he would let them know nothing is off the table. Their diagnosis is really a call to action. If they weren’t concerned for their health before, they now have a formal invitation to claim their health and wellness.”

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t earn this autoimmune condition, but now that you have it, you have an opportunity to be as healthy as you can be, to claim health or to suffer the consequences. But you can achieve health and accomplish every goal you had before.” 

“In fact, your goals are even going to be better now. I think that’s my approach. You can accomplish more because it’s a little more real. That is the theme for our game, ‘Managing your diabetes lets you live your full adventure.’”

For more information on Heroic Diabetes, check the Heroic Game Day website. Healthcare providers and other interested parties can reach Smith at jarensmith13@gmail.com.