Is there any benefit for healthy people to track their blood sugar?
The measurement of blood sugar has joined the follow -up of sleep and the exercise of well -being trends, with some longevity experts who claim that reducing fluctuations throughout the day can help protect against heart disease, even for people who do not have diabetes.
Continuous glucose monitors, or CGMS, are small devices that track blood sugar in real time and can tell users how their bodies are reacting to stress, food, sleep or exercise. The new versions adhere to a user’s arm and can match a smartphone to give blood sugar readings throughout the day. The CGM, which the Food and Drug Administration first approved for the first time in 1999, has traditionally prescribed only to diabetes.
More recently, the FDA has approved two blood sugar monitors for the use of free sale, which makes them available to any person without recipes. As a result, people who do not have diabetes are increasingly promoted in social media sites such as Reddit to help with weight loss or to monitor the benefits of exercise.
Shannon Sackley, 30, real estate agent in Los Angeles, has no diabetes, but has been using a blood sugar tracker for a couple of months after seeing a friend with diabetes to use one.
“I think it’s exciting and it is surprising that you can see how food affects your body,” he said. “I think it’s really valuable to have.”
Previously, diabetic patients had to monitor blood sugar with punctures with fingers, painful and repetitive procedures that only gave a glucose reading time on time. The fingertips gives a drop of blood that enters a machine to provide a blood sugar reading.
Dr. Michael Natter, endocrinologist of Nyu Langone Health and Diabetic, compared the puncture of the fingers with trying to “fly a plane with a bandage in the bandage.”
“You know you are in heaven, you know that you are going to somewhere nearby, but you don’t know your direction or how fast,” he said. “Continuous glucose monitors are a fantastic and revolutionary device.”
What is normal blood sugar?
Blood sugar can vary throughout the day, and is generally lower in the morning before we eat, as monitored by a test “fasting blood sugar”.
A normal blood sugar reading when fasting is typically 70 to 100 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl), said Dr. Vijaya Surmpudi, endocrinologist and nutrition specialist at UCLA Health.
After eating, our bodies break down food in their carbohydrate, protein and fat construction blocks. Carbohydrates, which are found in high amounts in food such as bread, rice and pasta, directly become sugar or glucose, which is then absorbed into the bloodstream.
After people eat, it is completely normal for their blood sugar to increase, Natter said. However, it can be a problem if the number increases too much.
Surampudi said: “If someone is not diabetic, anything less than 140 is acceptable.” For someone with diabetes, the ideal level must be below 180, he added.
It is not just what we eat. High levels of stress can interrupt a person’s blood sugar balance, and have been linked to diabetes. The dream is also “intricately connected” to blood sugar, according to the National Sleep Foundation. In a 2022 study in patients without diabetes, researchers found that the highest blood sugar readings in CGM were linked to less total sleep time.
“If we don’t sleep enough, put our body under a certain amount of stress,” Natter said.
This stress can lead to high levels of stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine, which finally causes increases in blood sugar.
Should I worry about blood sugar peaks?
There is still not much research on the value of tracking blood sugar peaks into people who do not have diabetes, Natter said. He pointed out that the devices were not designed or calibrated for a non -diabetic population, so it is difficult to know what the readings should be for a healthy person.
“I don’t think we know enough about how thorough glucose variations really have optimal performance,” he said.
It is normal for the sugar levels of a healthy person to change during the day. Being too aware of peaks in blood sugar could be a source of anxiety.
“Blood sugar is a dynamic value that we see,” Natter said. “It is not supposed to be 100 all day.”
During a recent study that uses CGMS in patients without diabetes, researchers at Boston University were surprised by blood sugar peaks during the day.
“We saw many more high glucose levels than I think we expected in people without diabetes,” said the main author of the study, Nicole Spartan Boston University of the Boston at Boston University. Medicine.
Specifically, they discovered that even participants without diabetes spent three hours a day with blood sugar levels exceeding 140. For 15 minutes a day, the numbers even rose more than 180.
In other words, even healthy people can have high sugar peaks, and it is not yet clear if they represent any long -term risk.
“As these devices are now more available, people will use them, and people will see really high glucose levels and potentially will be really worried about that,” Spartano said. “With luck, people can look at our data and compare their own with what they are finding within themselves.”
Is there any proven health benefit?
The experts agree that there is great upward potential of the monitors available on the counter, capturing cases of diabetes before for people with family history or potentially prevent them. The monitors could help users to learn which food triggers blood sugar peaks and cut them from their diets.
“People who have pre-diabetes may be really interested in using this because they are trying to avoid the development of diabetes,” Surampudi said.
It is not uncommon for diabetes to be diagnosed late, and estimates suggest that 240 million people worldwide are diabetic and are not aware. In the United States alone, approximately 9 million people met the diabetes criteria, but they did not know, according to disease control and prevention centers.
Diabetes can be deadly if it is not diagnosed and tried in a timely manner. If it is not, it can cause nervous damage, renal insufficiency and even serious injuries that may require amputation.
Monitors could also help women with polycystic ovary syndrome, a hormonal disorder that is often related to infertility, weight problems and irregular or lost periods, avoid long -term complications.
“Women fighting with pcos fight with insulin resistance,” Surmpudi said. “They are trying to learn which food can eat or what foods will not raise their blood sugar.”
Sackley said he feels that using the device has helped her healthy lifestyle decisions.
“I cut the dates because they have a high level of sugar and” healthy ‘protein bars because they would make my glucose peak alarmingly high, “he said. Other changes include walking after meals and even adjust the order in which different food groups eat.
Fighting against sleep problems all his life, he discovered that avoiding sugar peaks at the end of the night has improved their dream and energy levels the next day.
Research shows that eating vegetables and proteins before carbohydrates can reduce sugar peaks. It is believed that this is due to the slowest emptying of the stomach, preventing high sugar levels from absorbing rapidly in the bloodstream.
