Continuous Glucose Monitor for Non-Diabetics
 

My buddy is a fitness and health freak and due to family history of T2D, has obtained a continuous glucose monitor from a company called Levels Health, who issues them without a prescription but with a annual and monthly membership fee, which isn't exactly cheap. He was showing me the effects different foods and activities had on his glucose levels and it was eye opening. For example, he started the day with a chocolate crossiant and banana and that threw his levels way out of whack and couldn't recover the rest of the day. The next day he had a couple hard boiled eggs and kale and his sugar stabilized for the entire day, despite a small spike eating pizza for lunch.

Certain fruits like apples, spiked glucose more than a small ice cream cone and bread seems to be the worst offender. It was really interesting to see and really hits home that everyone will react differently to different foods and environmental factors. One other interesting thing was that after a really indulgent or bad meal, a 10 minute walk seemed to restabilize levels. Walking seems to be the best way (for him anyway) to bring levels back, even moreso thaN a run.

It's a shame this isn't more readily available to the population. I think it would go a long way to improving our health and seeing how certain foods and lifestyle choices affect each of us. I think pilots could even benefit more, seeing how our dining choices, circadium rhythym routines, etc are affected.

Probably would be useful for many, avoiding big glucose excursions might reduce the odds of getting into pre-diabetes range or worse.

Glucose excursions are part of normal physiology because of the lag time between food absorption and insulin release in the pancreas. That’s why glucose testing needs to be done fasting and spot glucoses mean little to nothing in otherwise healthy individuals.

Here is a reasonably balanced article on the subject:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/...e-202106112473

https://i.ibb.co/G2W5LBf/IMG-6431.jpg

And another: https://www.houstonmethodist.org/blo...have-diabetes/

All in all, asking your regular doctor to do an annual HgbA1C would seem to make more sense, and likely be cheaper.

https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/managin...sugar/a1c.html

And keep all the OCD health freaks from descending into rampant paranoia.

A1C is the gold standard for long term health.

It would be interesting to see if the magnitude or timing of routine glucose excursions has a correlation to anything. Tend to suspect somebody already has an idea.

There are multiple biological feedback loops involved and a statistically valid study would take decades, be very expensive, and would likely show a trivial attributable risk compared to already well established factors like exercise and BMI. That won’t stop the true believers from buying them today though - or entrepreneurs from getting rich selling the latest version of snake oil.

yes, but isn’t there value in seeing how certain foods spike glucose?

You're probably right.

It might be useful to flag those with a pre-disposition, some of whom might even make the changes necessary to avoid their genetic fate. But yeah they'd need lots of data. I suspect at least some it exists, could still have been done the old fashioned way, although it would get annoying for long-term with multiple daily samples.

No. That’s all pretty well established. You can look in books and find the amounts of glucose and other sugars and starches (basically a bunch of sugars chained together) in various foodstuffs.

If you are worried about YOUR glucose tolerance a HgbA1C is the way to go unless you want to go old school and get a glucose tolerance test (GTT).

https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article...%20differently.

They basically have you slam enough glucose to make you sick to your stomach (about 300 calories worth) and then see how long it takes you to metabolize it. Maybe using continuous monitoring would probably THEN be better than the old school which was three hours of periodic blood draws but even so, a HgbA1C would give you a better assessment since it averages out how your body has handled all your dietary intake over the last three months rather than trying to extrapolate from an artificial three hour test load.

As far as assessing your prediabetic status, that’s far more accurate than a three hour GTT

Dexcom is going to market a scaled down version of their G7 CGM in 2024 for diabetics not on insulin:

https://www.medtechdive.com/news/dex...diabet/653854/

Many believe this is a reaction to Apple who are believed to be making a Smartwatch that can use infrared to check glucose.

I've been using a CGM for 5-6 years now. I started a long time before going on insulin. The Freestyle Libre without insurance runs around $120/month or so I think, but that data is several years old.

If you're not officially diagnosed as diabetic the insurance may not pay for a CGM but if you're got reason to suspect your susceptible I think your Doctor will write you a prescription.

There's a large Diabetic forum with a section for CGM's at this website:

https://www.diabetesdaily.com/forum/...itors-cgms.84/

As mentioned, the CGM is great for showing you what certain foods do to your glucose levels.

Insulin dependent pilots who want a Class 1 Medical have to wear a certain type of CGM that has low glucose alarms. And they have to submit 6 months of monitoring data along with explanations for high/low readings.