What I Learned by Monitoring My Glucose Level Continuously
Strategies for beating my insulin resistance
With my passion for longevity, preventative medicine, and time restriction feeding, I find the invention of Continuous Glucose Monitoring to be of invaluable importance. In one of my previous posts, I had revealed that as a 25-year-old, I recently found out that I am insulin resistant. I laid out ways that you can also find out how to diagnose it. I also promised at the end that I will speak a little bit about strategies that I use to help myself cope.
One strategy is to monitor my blood glucose levels using Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGMs). I will also give some insights into how they work and why it is beneficial to self-experiment with a CGM at least once. I will lay out some of the pros and cons of using them and how they have been of immense help to help me curtail my insulin resistance and destructive habits.
What is a Continuous Glucose Monitoring Device?
It is a sensor that measures your blood glucose through a small, thin wire (like a human hair) inserted into your subcutaneous tissue. Using the strengths of enzymatic assays, the wire generates an electrical signal that goes up onto a sensor that sits on top of your arm. With some wise engineering, an algorithm converts your generated electrical signal to your actual glucose level. The best things about these devices are that they are completely non-intrusive to your lifestyles: You can sleep, shower, and even swim with them attached.
What are the different CGM`s on the market right now?
Personally, I have used the Abbott freestyle libre and it has provided me with my glucose values with incredible accuracy without being invasive to my lifestyle. I have used them during my triathlon training including my swimming sessions, and they worked perfectly well.
The good parts about CGM`s and why you should wear them?
First, they give you an entire video and a complete idea of what is going on in real-time. Compared to their predecessors which are glucose finger sticks that provide you with time observations, CGM`s show you a complete trend of your glucose level with instant feedback. The analogy would be the contrast of a picture to a video. While the glucose sticks provide you with information at single time points, the CGM`s is a combination of multiple time points.
Second, CGM`s are potent tools to give you insights on what is going on and can be incredible at what kinds of food affect your glucose level. They help with behavior. While a change of habits is one of the most critical factors for better health, they are the hardest to implement.
One of the most potent tools hence is to have feedback machines that would allow you to institute positive and negative reinforcement measures to curb or promote lifestyle changes. As one of my favorite podcast hosts generally says: “It is really hard to not pay attention to how activities in your life, mostly food and stress affect your glucose attention.” Undoubtedly, CGM`s can play an important role for people who want to make a conscious and informed decision about their food choices. Given that there has been a rise in personalized medicine and healthcare, these devices will enable catering and tailoring the right food choices for patients.
For me personally, these devices have been incredible at self-shaming me after my guilty pleasures.
Last but not least, it is an amazing way to show you whether you should be really concerned about your glucose level. Your CGM readings are invaluable as a marker for insulin resistance and also can be easily employed to monitor blood glucose levels for type 1 and type 2 diabetes. I hope that they will eventually be used for diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of a range of diseases not limited to insulin resistance but also with potential use for stress-related disorders such as depression and anxiety where your cortisol and glucocorticoid levels are incredibly affected.
Why you would be discouraged to wear CGM`s?
Not readily available
Some countries still require you to have them prescribed by medical practitioners which I find outrageous given their safety and ease of use. In my humble opinion, these devices are influenced by arbitrage practices, monopolistic domination, and healthcare regulations which make access to them in certain countries very hard. While I do understand the premise behind such practices, I think that more effort should be done by the medical establishment and the governing bodies to make them more accessible to the common person.
They are incredibly expensive
From a cost perspective, there is a toll of 160 dollars for a diabetic patient every month, and thus can be a substantial financial burden for the common man. It would cost around 8–10 dollars per day if acquired, this is quite unfortunate as a disproportionate of metabolic syndrome occurs in developing countries in particular South East Asia with a significant proportion of the population having a low purchasing power.
They have a short lifespan
They can only be used for two weeks at a time. Unless you can afford it, these 14-day-sensors really would be deemed by many as not being sustainable especially with regards to chronic diseases like diabetes where constant treatment is required.
While I do understand the premise behind these standards, I do believe that such devices can be made much cheaper with a larger lifespan, and in fact, we could also attempt to make them less invasive if we are to employ machine learning principles with other body parameters such as Heartbeats, Heart Rate variability and stress level.
My observations using the Freestyle Libre
Over the past few months, I have begun on a self experimenting journey testing out what affects my glucose level. For the record, before I show my results, I would like to give a little prelude to my eating habits and my fasting habits.
General Feeding routine & Fasting routine
I am a strong advocate of fasting with periods of caloric restriction from Mondays-Fridays, I practice OMAD`s (One Meal A Day) which is generally lunch. Once a month, I practice 3 day-water-only-fast. No caloric intake but just water.
What happens to my glucose level if I do a quick sprint?
As observed above, my glucose level is not only a function of what I consume but also the kind of exercise that I am doing. In the picture, above I just did a quick 5km run which shows that my glycogen level stores are depleting and providing the necessary glucose to the muscles.
What happens to my glucose if I don`t eat for three days?
One of the most surprising things for me is the fact that my glucose level is relatively stable (6 October) during the first two days of fasting despite not consuming anything. More importantly what my CGM has revealed that feeling hungry is less physiological but more psychological. Even though I did feel slightly hungry on 6th October, I realized that it was not for lack of glucose in my body.
The second thing I noted was how long it took for my body to deplete my glycogen reserves and tap into my fat reserves. As it can be observed, it is only after 48 hours, that my glucose level dips. At this point, my body is in a state of ketosis and surviving on other sources of fuel such as fats and B-Hydroxybutyrate.
Finally, what I observed was how destructive my indulgences can be if I am not careful how I break my fast. On 8th of October as noted above, I broke my fast with a carbs heavy meal as a way to reward myself and deeply regretted it. It took my body more than 6 hours for my glucose to go back to baseline level.
Bigger picture
What CGM`s help for me is to curtail my habits and find out what lifestyles choices that I make (or don`t make) influence my glucose level and thus my insulin levels. My goal is to have as much as possible baseline glucose level with as little variation as possible. Although it can be argued that they are nothing but feedback & measurement devices, they definitely feature in my toolbox for fighting against the incoming metabolic syndrome that I hope to delay or even better prevent it.
However, given their cost and shorter lifespan, I don`t think that they are as accessible and sustainable as I would want them to be. In the next post, I will try to describe one little trick that has been helpful for me to find out my glucose values without the use of a CGM. Stay tuned.
Caveat
Neither am I paid or endorsed by any companies. This is just my way of sharing my journey and experience of combatting metabolic syndrome. In no way, would I want you to believe that I am an expert but rather a steward of this idea.
This post is for general information purposes only and not intended for medical advice or treatment.
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