Continuous Glucose Meters: How Useful Are They?

Long the domain of diabetics (including Nick Jonas, who appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for Dexcom’s CGM), more average Joes and Janes, as well as elite athletes, clip continuous glucose meters (CGMs) to their arms to measure their blood glucose levels above blood glucose levels Day.

If you’ve seen a plastic circle on the upper back of a person’s arm, that’s a CGM. They’re the easier way to track blood sugar compared to blood glucose meters, which require a small sample of blood to test – usually through a finger prick.

The hope is that CGMs will help people find the best foods and the right order to eat them to promote weight loss, increase energy, and other health benefits.

Understand blood sugar levels

Blood sugar, which your body makes from food during the digestive process, provides energy. Insulin carries it through the blood system into cells, giving you the ability to play tennis, go to the gym, and/or get work done. Your body uses some of it right away and leaves the rest in the cells for later use.

dr Liz Applegate, distinguished lecturer and director emeritus of sports nutrition at the University of California Davis, compares the body’s blood glucose delivery system to the hallways of a multi-classroom kindergarten building. “Think of your body as a busy school. All of your blood vessels are the ducts and the cells are the classrooms. Insulin is a hallway monitor and the students are blood sugar,” she says. “So when we have an influx of glucose from what we ate, insulin tells the glucose where to go. There’s a knock on the classroom doors. When the cell receptor is working well, the door opens and glucose comes in. This is usually the case.”

When it doesn’t work, it’s “hundreds of little kids running around unsupervised, doodling on the walls. This is glucose, which “damages the epithelial lining of blood vessels” and causes health problems.

When blood sugar in diabetics rises and then falls, they become hypoglycemic and may begin to tremble, feel dizzy, become lethargic, or become very confused. Over time, uncontrolled diabetes can lead to a person’s heart or kidney disease, severe vision and hearing problems, and problems with their feet or mouth. So, yes, monitoring glucose is a must for this demographic — as well as those with a family history of type 2 diabetes or other prediabetes symptoms.

But for people without diabetes, fluctuations in blood sugar are usually not dangerous. They’re mostly just a part of everyday life when people eat (or skip meals), exercise, and drink alcohol.

“There are many, many factors that go into this,” says Applegate. And blood sugar levels even out as daily activity changes.

How continuous glucose meters work

Most CGMs today include a case that contains a data transmitter and a minimally invasive filament sensor that is placed under the skin. (Previous versions — some of which are still on the market — used a needle instead of the filament.) The filament, which is coated with glucose-sensing enzymes like glucose oxidase, wears out over time and needs to be replaced every seven to 14 years days, depending on the brand. The case is held in place with an adhesive on the back of the wearer’s arm. The data transmitter sends the information gathered via the filament to a monitor or app on the user’s phone and usually to the service the person uses to track their numbers. For diabetic patients, this can be a clinic or doctor’s office.

For non-diabetes CGM users, the numbers can get tricky. Blood sugar is constantly changing depending on what you eat and drink, sleep, exercise, stress, hormones, medications, time of day and more. Diabetics know what to look out for, but for non-diabetics, the meaning behind the ever-changing number can be confusing.

CGM technology

CGMs, whether for diabetics or those interested in blood sugar, are not cheap technology. Insurance companies or Medicare generally pay for a CGM for people with diabetes. But the technology is now also being produced for wellness-oriented companies rather than those sitting on the purely medical side of the glucose line.

Companies offering CGMs to the general public — typically through direct sales to consumers — include NutriSense, Signos, and Veri. Their products usually come bundled with personalized nutritional advice based on the customer’s readings.

At NutriSense, they say it’s a holistic approach to health that prevents future health problems from developing. “We spend more money per capita on people trying to help them with their health every year, and more than any other country in the world. People are getting sicker,” said Dan Zavoropny, co-founder and COO of NutriSense, a company that provides everyday people with CGMs and provides personalized nutritional advice based on the results.

He founded NutriSense to try to “prevent disease and get people information early on, rather than trying to manage things when it’s too late.”

The program, which has been on the market for over three years, costs $250 for a month of monitoring and offers access to a nutritionist who “helps you understand what you’re seeing, looks at your goals, and then tells you.” Hey I think these are the most important changes you can make to improve your healthsays Carlee Hayes, Senior Nutrition Manager at Nutrisense.

While the explanation sounds promising, there isn’t much research to support glucose monitoring for the average person. “Historically, research has lagged behind technology. Continuous glucose monitoring is no exception to this rule,” says Hayes.

But, she adds, there are “a lot of research studies right now using this technology in people who don’t have diabetes, but it’s really in that preliminary phase.” NutriSense is conducting its own clinical trials, and Zavoropny says, “We do have some seen good results.” He could only provide details after the studies were published.

The cost of CGMs

With a monthly monitoring cost of $250, CGMs are out of reach for many consumers. The biggest costs come from the hardware, which has to be replaced every two weeks as the sensors wear out, but Zavoropny says that “as it becomes more scalable and hardware manufacturers start lowering prices and there’s more competition in the market.” . price will fall.

And, says Zavoropny, “in theory, over time, insurance companies will cover that [and] Reduce costs in the future.” He also says that people don’t have to carry the devices all year round. They say some clients use a CGM for a month to get baseline measurements and an initial round of advice from their nutritionists. (One month would require a hardware replacement for the user to get a new sensor.)

Since they are not diabetics, daily monitoring is not required. You can develop a plan based on a month’s worth of data. Then people return every 12 to 18 months for another round of using the device to adjust to where their lives and diets are at that point. Customers only pay when actively using the devices and the service.

Should You Use a Continuous Glucose Meter?

When it comes to using a CGM for general health, there are no physical harms from just using the devices.

While Applegate doesn’t recommend the units for the average person, she believes there could be some good use cases for elite athletes looking to gain an edge ahead of a big event. “But do you always have to have it?” She asks. “I think of it as TMI … especially for these average Joes who do it because it’s a fad and then put it aside.”

your recommendation? She suggests focusing on “gross” measurements, e.g. B. Losing 10 pounds or cutting three minutes from your 10,000.