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BioHacking with A Continuous Glucose Monitor

A Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) is a tiny wearable medical device that accurately measures the amount of sugar (glucose) in your blood 24 hours a day.

By John IovinePublished 2 years ago 13 min read
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These monitors track the user’s blood sugar levels close to real-time without resorting to the standard blood stick test using a glucometer. The terms blood sugar and blood glucose mean the same thing and are used interchangeably.

Blood glucose is measured in milligrams of glucose per deciliter of blood (mg/dL). Deciliter is 1/10 of a liter.

You may think that Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGM) are only for diabetic or prediabetic people needing better control of their blood sugar. Admittedly that is the target market. And before start-up digital health companies like NutriSense made their appearance, you had to have an “established” medical need and doctor’s prescription. However, that’s changed. CGM’s are increasingly being used in the biohacking community of people without blood sugar issues.

Biohackers use CGM data to increased athletic performance, longevity, quicker weight loss, and an increase in energy. Yes, all this and more from better controlling your blood sugar through tracking.

Metabolically Healthy?

Do you think you are metabolically healthy? If you said yes, you might want to think again.

Only 12.2% of Americans are Metabolically Healthy

There are far fewer people metabolically healthy than most people think. According to a 2019 National Health study that evaluated data from 8,721 adults, only 12.2% of Americans fit the standard of being Metabolically healthy.

Study: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/met.2018.0105

This means that 87.8% of Americans are at an increased risk of developing diabetes and heart disease. If you suffer from metabolic syndrome or are prediabetic, getting a CGM to help control your blood glucose level to improve your metabolic health is a no-brainer.

CGM’s

There are many CGM’s on the market. This article focuses on the Abbott labs FreeStyle CGM. To obtain a CGM, you either need a prescription from a doctor or purchase the CGM through an intermediary company such as NurtiSense (https://www.nutrisense.io/). There are other companies but I chose Nutrisense.

NutriSense will have you to fill out a questionnaire and, based on your answers, issue the required prescription for joining NutriSense and purchasing CGM devices.

About The Sensor

Abbotts FreeStyle CGM transmits your blood glucose information via NFC (Near Feild Communication) to your smartphone in real-time. The Sensor tracks your blood glucose levels approximately every 15 minutes and stores 8 hours’ worth of data. Therefore, it is necessary to download your data to your Apple or Android smartphone a minimum of every eight hours, or you will lose data. The App on the phone tracks and graphs your blood glucose levels over time.

The CGM Sensor Doesn’t Have A Needle

The CGM Sensor you place on the back of your arm doesn’t have a needle. It has a short wire inserted into your arm that reads your Blood Glucose via interstitial tissue fluid.

However, a very short needle is required to insert the subcutaneous sensor. The subcutaneous sensor itself resembles a 3/8" wire. The needle is only in your arm for a fraction of a second, for insertion, and it is not painful. The photo above shows the bottom of the CGM sensor’s 3/8" wire. The US quarter is for size comparison.

The CGM sensor has a working lifetime of 14 days on your arm and is replaced after it has expired. Users are recommended to alternate arms with each replacement Sensor.

Clear video instructions for placing the CGM sensor on the back of your arm are available on the NurtiSense website;

( https://help.nutrisense.io/en/articles/4356213-tips-for-successful-sensor-placement )

and YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dQE6v7dktc&t=14s

Once the CGM sensor is placed on your arm, it is activated using the NurtiSense App on your smartphone. The sensor auto-calibrates during the first 12–24 hours. So its data in the first 24 hours may be off a bit. Fortunately, the NutruSense App offers a manual sensor calibration if needed.

Smartphone App

The NutriSense App for the iPhone is the crown jewel of CGM monitoring software. A book could be written on the many features included in the NutriSense App. Fortunately, it allows people like myself to use the App’s basic functions without having to learn all the advanced features it has to offer.

At the basic level, the Glucose Chart tracks your BG throughout the day. If you enter meals, snacks, and activities into the App, you can track your body’s blood glucose response to meals, snacks, and activities.

Meals can be entered superficially or precisely. For instance, you could enter that you ate roast beef for dinner. The software will plot that meal on your graph with a dot at the time you ate. You can, as time passes, see how your body responded to any foods, drinks, meals or snacks.

Checking your body’s response to food is so enlightening, you may want to be more precise in entering meals and snacks. You can do this by entering the nutritional value of the foods you eat. The software relays how your food and meals are broken down into their components of calories, carbs, protein, and fats.

I am using roast beef as an example. I start by making roast beef an ingredient. When entering an item as an ingredient, you are allowed to quantify a measurement. In the case of Roast Beef, I chose weight in ounces. From there, I entered the nutritional information for one ounce of roast beef, its calories, protein, fat, carbohydrate, and sugar in grams.

Then when entering a meal, you can choose roast beef as an ingredient, select the number of ounces you ate (approximately), along with any and food you ate.

The software totals your meal into a Macro of Calories, Protein, Net Carbs, and Fat.

I believe one purpose of macros is that different foods with similar Macros may produce similar Blood Glucose responses.

More Food Analysis

The greater precision you used for your food intake, the greater precision you will have in tracking your body’s response to food using the App’s blood glucose graph.

If you add the nutritional information for your food, NutriSense can score each meal and snack on a 10 point Glucose Score for the following factors; Peak, Exposure, Stability, and Recovery.

Peak — This is the rise in your glucose from the meal.

Exposure — Is the area under the curve caused by the rise in glucose over time (to recover to previous glucose level)

Stability — The jump in glucose

Recovery — How close your 2-hour post-meal glucose value is to your pre-meal glucose factor.

The comprehensiveness of the smartphone app and all of its features exceed the boundaries of this article. The truth is I’m still learning them myself.

Can Technology Teach Us to Eat Better?

It has for me. By tracking my body’s BG response to different food, I have learned to modify my diet to keep my BG from spiking.

The CGM is your never sleeping accountability partner. You can’t cheat and sneak a cookie behind its back. The sugar and carbs are sure to raise and possibly spike your BG levels. However, you certainly can mute the BG response to eating a cookie by having a piece of cheese a 15-20 minutes beforehand.

What are normal blood glucose values?

Unfortunately, there aren’t universal healthy blood glucose values. Everyone is unique, and some variables co-factor into a healthy blood glucose value for an induvial that includes health, weight, body fat percentage, and age.

There are general blood glucose guidelines that are considered healthy. The America Diabetes Association (ADA) states that a fasting BG value of 100 or less is healthy. More experts are trending toward a healthy fasting value in the range of 70–90 mg/dL. A fast is when you go eight hours or longer without consuming food and only drink water during that time. A fasting BG value can usually be checked in the morning upon waking up.

Eating increases our blood glucose values, as food proves fuel for our body. However, experts state that an individual’s blood glucose value should return to an average “pre-eating” level two to three hours after eating. This is called postprandial “after-eating” blood glucose values.

Experts also recommended trying to keep blood glucose levels under 140 mg/dL.

Superpower (A gift and a curse)

The CGM gives you a superpower to see your body’s BG response not only to food but exercise and sleep as well. The curse of the CGM, is that you can’t wish away bad choices with magical thinking that those bad choices are not having an impact on your health.

Stress

Cortisol causes our body to increase blood glucose, and at the same time, it decreases insulin sensitivity. In ancient times, this cortisol response was a good thing. The stress of seeing a saber tooth tiger in the nearby vicinity dumped glucose into the blood to fuel our muscles to run for our lives. However, in modern times, the mundane stress of being late for work doesn’t benefit from a stress-induced glucose dump and is over the long term harmful.

Studies show increased stress induces increased blood glucose. Study

A decrease in stress through mediation has been shown to decrease blood glucose values. Study.

Sleep

Yes, a good night’s sleep reduces the stress hormone cortisol and thereby improves your BG response.

To study the effects of sleep on blood glucose response, researchers reduce the hours of sleep of their study participants. After a few days of sleep deprivation, the participants had up to a 40% increase in their blood glucose response to food. In addition, the researchers noted changes in their hunger hormones, leptin, and ghrelin. The hunger hormone changes tended to increase appetite.

Study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2084401/

Exercise

Exercise has a profound effect on my blood glucose levels. I have found that intense exercise lowers my overnight BG values. On the other hand, some people use mild exercise, like walking, to mute their blood glucose response to a large meal.

BioHacking Health

Maintaining optimum BG levels makes staying healthy more manageable and improves your metabolic health. The keen insights of knowing your BG values will help you lose weight, build muscle and maintain a good energy level throughout the day. In addition, improving your metabolic health can reduce or prevent diseases caused by poor metabolic health and increase your longevity.

What more would you want from a biohacking device?

Personalized Data

The blood glucose response to food and exercise is different for different people. One person can consume a carb-loaded snake and barely show as a blip on their Glucose Chart. Another person eating the same snake could see their blood glucose spike into the stratosphere.

This is where your CGM shines. To see your body's individual response to food and exercise. Still, sometimes it not always this straightforward.

I have found that I am more sensitive to carbs at night than I am in the daytime. A snack in the daytime may barely show a blip, but the same snack at night spikes my blood glucose.

Also what you’ve eaten previously can affect your blood glucose response to food in real-time. For instance, the first small carb snack may have only a small blip on your blood glucose response. However, a second small carb snack an hour later may have a more profound effect on your blood glucose response.

Again responses are individualized and personalized, my response may not be your response, in other words, your personal mileage may vary.

Personal Registered Dietitian

One advantage NutriSense has over its competitors is the availability of registered dietitians. A registered dietitian is assigned to you at no additional cost for a period of two weeks to a month, depending upon your sign-on plan.

The dietitian is familiar with the NutriSense Sensor and App and can answer any questions that come up. The dietitian can work with you to understand your body’s BG response to food, exercise, and rest. What I liked most are the personalized answers. When I asked a question, I did NOT get a canned answer or link to an informative article. My dietitian took the time to read my question, check my BG charts on my NurtiSense App, and answered the question as it related to me. Wow!

You can maintain dietitian support after the initial free period for a $50 monthly fee.

Worth The Price of Admission

One tip my dietitian provided was worth the price of admission to NutriSense by itself. I had already reduced my sugar and white carbohydrate intake, but I struggled to maintain a healthy BG level. It was like, seriously, WTF?

In a subsequent email conversation with my dietitian, whom I’ll call Jordyn, mainly because her name is Jordyn, wrote to me suggesting that when eating meals, I should eat my vegetables after I eat my protein. The reasoning is that an empty stomach is more carb sensitive, and eating some protein first will mute my BG response to the carbs in my vegetables.

Previous to her suggestion, I always ate my vegetables first to full up on the lower calorie vegetables before eating the higher calorie proteins.

I followed her suggestion and my BG response to meals stopped spiking into the stratosphere. When I think of the years I had been doing myself in by eating my veggies first — facepalm to head.

Vinegar, Lemon Juice and Blood Glucose

Studies show that vinegar does reduce glucose response to carbohydrates. So eating a salad with red or white vinegar will mute your blood glucose response to carbohydrates and improve the satiety of the meal.

Study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16015276/

Lemon juice also lowers the body’s response to carbohydrates. This research agrees with other studies that show that the pH of the meal affects the blood glucose response of carbohydrates.

Study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32201919/

Lose Diabetes and Protect Your Health

You know that having diabetes or pre-diabetes can lead to severe complications, including heart disease, kidney damage, and vision loss. If you’re prediabetic, the CGM will help you prevent the diseases from developing. If you have type II diabetes, the CGM will help you battle it into remission.

Four Pillars

The four pillars that support healthy Blood Glucose values are food choices, exercise, sleep, and stress reduction. The CGM is a tool that shows the body’s blood glucose response to your choices, that can steer you to a healthy body BG response with minimal impact on lifestyle — for instance, eating protein before vegetables to mute BG response. So whether you need to battle high blood glucose or optimize your health through biohacking, a CGM is a valuable asset.

NutriSense and CGM Pricing

First - I do NOT benefit finanially (in any way) if you start a NutriSense program.

NutriSense offers a variety of subscription programs.

The No-Strings “Try” Program. No commitment. You purchase sensors singularly or monthly basis. Includes 14-Day complimentary dietitian service

$175 for 14-days (1 CGM sensor) Includes 14-Day complimentary dietitian service

$350 for 28-days (2 CGM sensors) Includes 30-Day complimentary dietitian service

Monthly Subscription Plans: Includes 30-Day complimentary dietitian service

$250 per month for a 3-month commitment ($125 per CGM sensor)

$199 per month for a 6-month commitment ($99.50 per CGM sensor)

$185 per month for a 12-month commitment ($92.50 per CGM sensor)

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About the Creator

John Iovine

Science writer

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