I have a friend that is diabetic (a number of friends, actually).
He has been doing a pretty lousy job of managing his diet.
Until his doctor prescribed a monitor for a few weeks.
This is a device that looks like a big Band-Aid that you put on your arm, inserting a fine needle under the skin, and communicates with an app on the phone, reporting things like glucose levels.
Once he realized the effects of the foods he was eating, he immediately changed his diet, and has been sticking to it, since (he no longer wears the monitor).
The UI of the app was pretty good. The historical data readout is what did it for him.
I think even people who don’t have diabetes could benefit from this. Would having access to my own glucose levels throughout the day give me some insights into how what I eat influences my own mood, energy levels etc?
Might, but as a non-diabetic your body self-regulate, so you'd usually see a large increase in blood sugars followed by a large drop as insulin blood levels increase and trigger its handling.
And because the sensor needle goes through the skin it must be replaced pretty regularly, and if it's not covered by insurance it's not exactly free (the link from the sibling indicates £57, that's per fortnight).
My diabetic colleague was super happy when they got one though, the "beep" of their checking their BAC is pretty funny and it's definitely more comfortable and sanitary than having to prick their finger every time, plus the full history view is useful as point check means there are dark holes between checks and you might not see some of the opportunities for improvements.
> because the sensor needle goes through the skin it must be replaced pretty regularly
I am an MRI radiographer and get patients to take these off for their scans.
According to the link below [1] they are good for 7 days. They aren’t cheap and removing them does cause some friction so I try tie the MRI scan up with a pending monitor change and quiz diabetic patients about them at booking.
Some have gone into the scanner by accident (patients not declaring them) and they seem to survive but I emphasise that the results might not be accurate afterwards.
You absolutely can, but having a needle in you 24/7 isn't the most convenient thing, not to mention the cost when it's not covered by your health plan.
There's one theory which is that the most effective form of weight loss might be simply to always keep blood sugar below a certain level. Still just a theory, though.
It's possible that sometime in the next decade the Apple Watch might be able to monitor glucose levels non-invasively. However, it's extremely difficult technologically, so it's not clear Apple will succeed. (They seem to be working on it though.)
The biggest benefit by far in my opinion is having the opportunity to learn how to listen to one's body again. Most of us aren't very good at recognizing the signals our bodies are sending us, from low blood sugar to adrenaline. Real-time monitors can really help people listen what those more subtle feelings might mean.
You might be interested to look into a calorie tracking app / cronometer. It's a bit of a slog as you need to (somewhat) accurately input your food intake, but even a week or so is enough to gain insight into your dietary habits (caloric intake, nutrients, vitamins, minerals).
There are non-medical versions of CGMs that are available from a wide variety of companies, primarily for those who are interested in monitoring their sports performance.
Technically, you still have to get a prescription to buy them, but the companies help you with that by connecting you to online doctors for the prescription. Oh, and they tend to cost more than if you had a medical CGM prescribed for you by your endocrinologist. I guess that's why they're so profitable for the companies selling them.
This company is offering it as a service https://www.limborevolution.com/, it's expensive though. I haven't used it but the owner has had a few success. Shaq is also an investor.
It'd be cool to give something like that a try, but I love that we have so much technology to monitor our bodies but I'd never use anything if it required a cell phone app since you'd have to worry about who else is collected/selling that data. We need more devices that work entirely offline, but they're hard to find because companies know they can make so much more money by collecting/selling your personal data and pushing ads
I don’t mean to minimize your concerns, and you should live your life as you see fit, but since you put this out there as a comment for others to reflect on - from my perspective your feelings are like paranoia or compulsion.
To me, my glucose number is completely impersonal. I wouldn’t care who knew this or not, it has little to do with my personhood, not to mention it moves so fast that no one can infer anything timely. And it’s the same range for all humans.
I’m also not saying that corporations should sell it!
It’s a bit like the fear of getting robbed. We all have the right to walk down the street safely, and if someone robs us, then that’s the bad guy (no victim blaming). But if the fear of getting robbed on each corner prevents you from trying stuff in life that you are interested in, and there’s very little chance a you will actually be robbed in any given situation, then that’s kinda like a crippling paranoia
To me, you’re like a digital prepper. You have a bunker full of canned food and guns because you think “you’re gonna wake up one day and …”
So be it. The way you live your life doesn’t negatively affect me so do what you gotta do. But maybe you don’t have to prep.
Btw, rationally speaking, those who opt into monitoring their glucose are going to be much healthier by self selection bias. Not to mention that you can use the stats to improve your condition, just like the parent comment was talking about.
I understand what you mean and I agree with you that one cannot prepare for, and shouldn't worry about, every possible future scenario. But is the scenario I'm describing really that far fetched? I'm honestly not sure.
No one can predict the future. But here’s some data we can look at.
In the US currently, you cannot be barred from buying health insurance even if you are an active smoker. And we’ve known about the dangers of smoking for a long time.
So even for these people that are actively harming themselves, we have a law that says they can do this. Now think about how far things have to move before we say “you can’t buy health insurance if you eat too much”.
> To me, my glucose number is completely impersonal. I wouldn’t care who knew this or not, it has little to do with my personhood
I'm not sure how much information a continuous glucose would reveal about you since I've never tried one. How healthy your diet is probably. Does it spike in the morning? Could it indicate when you sleep and when you wake? What other things can affect it? Sickness? Stress? Drugs/alcohol? A single reading may not tell anyone much, but I imagine that over time the patterns and sudden changes to them could reveal a lot about your life.
That kind of data might be used against you in a lot of different ways. Maybe it's higher or lower than normal often enough that it triggers some threshold and your health/life insurance company raises your rates. Maybe you get in an accident one day and the person who hit your car subpoenas those records and uses it to show that you're blood sugar was a bit low allowing them to suggest that you must have been drowsy or impaired and so the accident was your fault. Maybe companies will notice that there are certain times of the day when it changes and you're more likely to be hungry or thirsty or tired or anxious. Times when you're more vulnerable to manipulation or suggestion.
Is it paranoia when they're really out to get you? The buying and selling of the most mundane aspects of our lives is a multi-billion dollar a year industry. Almost every company you interact with today involves themselves in it in one way or another and the reason every single company is so desperate to get their hands on every scrap of data they can is because it's extremely profitable. The data they collect is already making them money hand over fist, mostly at the expense of the people whose data was taken. That data lives forever. It never goes away, and all kinds of people are looking into new ways to take advantage of us using it. Corporations, politicians, extremists, scammers, employers, lawyers, advertisers, anyone willing to pay and looking for an advantage over you.
I suppose that taking even small steps to protect myself (to the extent that it's even possible) does mean that I miss out on trying some things in life. Not allowing myself to be taken advantage of by handing over vast amounts of data isn't always fun, but until we have protections under the law that make those small concessions unnecessary is it better to just try to pretend it isn't happening and hope I don't get screwed over too badly when the data I gave up inevitably comes back to bite me in the ass later?
Usually it just means a have to work harder to find more reasonable alternatives. I still turn my lights on and off and set kitchen timers, but I don't do it with smart assistants. I have to find (and sometimes build) offline options for things like security cameras or backup solutions, and I have to search harder for things like pedometers and color changing light bulbs that aren't controlled by cell phone apps. I have to search for dumb TVs and cars.
I know that kind of effort it isn't worth it for everyone. Most people never notice when the data they give up is used against them. They don't know that the price they paid is higher than the price their neighbor paid for the extract same item. They don't know they waited longer on hold because they were pushed back so someone else who called in after them could be pushed ahead to the front of the queue. They aren't ever told why they didn't get that job or apartment they wanted. They'll never know about the products, services, or opportunities that they've been algorithmically excluded from. Most of the time it's all out of sight, out of mind. I just hope that people start paying better attention to what's happening because, like you, a lot of people feel like there's very little chance that they'll be robbed, but they're actually being robbed all the time, and it's going to get a lot worse.
He has been doing a pretty lousy job of managing his diet.
Until his doctor prescribed a monitor for a few weeks.
This is a device that looks like a big Band-Aid that you put on your arm, inserting a fine needle under the skin, and communicates with an app on the phone, reporting things like glucose levels.
Once he realized the effects of the foods he was eating, he immediately changed his diet, and has been sticking to it, since (he no longer wears the monitor).
The UI of the app was pretty good. The historical data readout is what did it for him.