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That's what I thought too, until I got my last bloodwork results and started wearing one of the OTC continuous glucose monitors. That device helped a lot to sw

That's what I thought too, until I got my last bloodwork results and started wearing one of the OTC continuous glucose monitors. That device helped a lot to switch diet habits.

robbiep 24d ago
Can you be specific about what your bloodwork results showed and what special insights your CGM gave you and what behavioural changes it led to? My anecdotal experience from doctor colleagues giving CGM to patients is that it does 3/5ths of fuck all to everyone except those with actual insulin dependent diabetes (T1 or T2) because when you get down to it the insights aren’t that great and most people actually aren’t that invested in shifting the dial on their health that much. But I’m fascinated by examples to the contrary
- sroussey 24d ago
  I did it for a month and learned what kinds of things led to spikes and what did not and it wasn’t always obvious without the monitor.
- RHSeeger 24d ago
  Seeing just how much rice can impact your blood sugar is eye opening. Sticking to a "half the normal amount" of rice when eating Indian/Asian food can help a lot with blood sugar. And keeping blood sugar in check _seems_ to have a fair amount of researching backing up the idea that it's healthier and makes you feel better
  - malfist 24d ago
    Sure it impacts it. But what does that matter? Your body is very efficient as self regulating
    - jimbobimbo 24d ago
      It is very efficient until it's not. When it's not, it sucks. You don't have to have full on diabetes to experience the suck.
    - owebmaster 24d ago
      > Your body is very efficient as self regulating Yet the mind of most people is terrible at that, we love to overeat our body regulations.
    - RHSeeger 23d ago
      It matters because high blood sugar isn't great for the body (nor is low blood sugar). A normal, non-diabetic's blood sugar might spike to 120/130 after a balanced meal. But that same person's blood sugar might spike up to 160/170 after something carb-heavy. So sure, the body corrects for it - but it would be healthier if it didn't go into that higher range at all.
- jimbobimbo 24d ago
  My story is: I had a really bad crash after eating a chocolate, which never happened before. That prompted the bloodwork, which shown that A1c was not where it's supposed to be. I bought CGM myself, without any doctor's input. Didn't know they exist before reading some selfhelp book which my wife found. Echoing another poster, it's eye opening how some of the foods you'd never think of, are spiking glucose levels. Overall, after both me and my wife adjusted diet, much better energy through the day, no crashes.
- barryp 24d ago
  For sure it's going to depend on the person, but I bet a lot of the hacker news crowd here appreciates observability and metrics. In software we're wiring up stuff with prometheus and making grafana dashboards and changing code and configuration based on what we see happening. CGMs in a way give you insight into one aspect of your body and diet. I've been trying Lingo, and it's been super-interesting to see in almost realtime how your body reacts to different foods. Sure you read all the time about "watch your carbs..." or "don't eat so much sugar", but it's hard to know how seriously to take that advice. It's a whole different thing though when you eat one thing for a snack and see a big spike in a graph on your phone, and eat a different thing the next day and see hardly any change at all. It makes it much easier to rationalize your food choices.

That's what I thought too, until I got my last bloodwork results and started wearing one of the OTC continuous glucose monitors. That device helped a lot to switch diet habits.

robbiep 24d ago

Can you be specific about what your bloodwork results showed and what special insights your CGM gave you and what behavioural changes it led to? My anecdotal experience from doctor colleagues giving CGM to patients is that it does 3/5ths of fuck all to everyone except those with actual insulin dependent diabetes (T1 or T2) because when you get down to it the insights aren’t that great and most people actually aren’t that invested in shifting the dial on their health that much. But I’m fascinated by examples to the contrary

sroussey 24d ago
I did it for a month and learned what kinds of things led to spikes and what did not and it wasn’t always obvious without the monitor.
RHSeeger 24d ago
Seeing just how much rice can impact your blood sugar is eye opening. Sticking to a "half the normal amount" of rice when eating Indian/Asian food can help a lot with blood sugar. And keeping blood sugar in check _seems_ to have a fair amount of researching backing up the idea that it's healthier and makes you feel better
- malfist 24d ago
  Sure it impacts it. But what does that matter? Your body is very efficient as self regulating
  - jimbobimbo 24d ago
    It is very efficient until it's not. When it's not, it sucks. You don't have to have full on diabetes to experience the suck.
  - owebmaster 24d ago
    > Your body is very efficient as self regulating Yet the mind of most people is terrible at that, we love to overeat our body regulations.
  - RHSeeger 23d ago
    It matters because high blood sugar isn't great for the body (nor is low blood sugar). A normal, non-diabetic's blood sugar might spike to 120/130 after a balanced meal. But that same person's blood sugar might spike up to 160/170 after something carb-heavy. So sure, the body corrects for it - but it would be healthier if it didn't go into that higher range at all.
jimbobimbo 24d ago
My story is: I had a really bad crash after eating a chocolate, which never happened before. That prompted the bloodwork, which shown that A1c was not where it's supposed to be. I bought CGM myself, without any doctor's input. Didn't know they exist before reading some selfhelp book which my wife found. Echoing another poster, it's eye opening how some of the foods you'd never think of, are spiking glucose levels. Overall, after both me and my wife adjusted diet, much better energy through the day, no crashes.
barryp 24d ago
For sure it's going to depend on the person, but I bet a lot of the hacker news crowd here appreciates observability and metrics. In software we're wiring up stuff with prometheus and making grafana dashboards and changing code and configuration based on what we see happening. CGMs in a way give you insight into one aspect of your body and diet. I've been trying Lingo, and it's been super-interesting to see in almost realtime how your body reacts to different foods. Sure you read all the time about "watch your carbs..." or "don't eat so much sugar", but it's hard to know how seriously to take that advice. It's a whole different thing though when you eat one thing for a snack and see a big spike in a graph on your phone, and eat a different thing the next day and see hardly any change at all. It makes it much easier to rationalize your food choices.