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FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

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Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#401

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The other insane thing is studies have shown that type 2 diabetes can be reversed by fasting. Fasting is problematic to the medical industry because it is zero cost. "Some studies found that patients were able to reverse their need for insulin therapy during therapeutic intermittent fasting protocols with supervision by their physician." https://clindiabetesendo.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/...

>Fasting is problematic to the medical industry because it is zero cost. Is this just an American thing? Every GP I've ever seen has asked me about my diet and exercise despite me being in the healthy BMI range.

Are you asking if your anecdotal evidence is sufficient to make an inference for all of Europe and the US?

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am prediabetic and I have one. It's partly covered by insurance. By the metrics my estimated average glucose has gone down from 129 to 98 or so (normal). I haven't had my HbA1c in awhile. I think they are amazing. It's been SO HELPFUL. However I don't think it makes sense for normal people. I am on a reddit group for prediabetes and it's not unusual that people who are underweight (anorexic?) and have completely no…

> I was shocked at how much I spiked from oatmeal. Was it oatmeal, or what you ate oatmeal with (milk, sweetener, etc), or do you know?

Also, instant oatmeal / rolled oats / steel cut oats / the whole dang oat?

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#403
post #59
post #45

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Aside from the fun, how did it go? Find anything surprising or insightful in the process? It sounds like an experiment I’d like to do for the purpose of optimizing my daily habits and establishing a better mental model for how my eating habits impact me throughout the day. But I really dislike needles.

If you want to know more about it you can just read about how diabetics treat different foods. Short version; high GI is fast high blood sugar, lots fat and sugar can results long period of with high blood sugars. It is a CGM more or less what you would expect, insulin is the only hormone that lowers blood sugar, then you have all the stress hormones that raise it like adrenalin, growth hormone and cortisol plus gluc…

> A CGM also needs perfect access to your free flowing blood

I thought CGMs measure the interstitial fluid?

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#404
post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More importantly for life style monitoring A1C is the more important number anyway, and doesn’t require wearing anything, just a simple blood test. It’s basically a 3 month moving average.

At least for a diabetic, A1C is less looked at nowadays. With CGMs, we can lookt to see our time-in-range, highs, lows, and patterns. It's... amazing. Plus, you can see just how much different types of foods directly impact your blood sugar. For example, white rice and pizza are crazy for raising glucose levels. I knew about pizza, but I had no idea that white rice what quite _that_ bad.

Doesn’t have to be white. Rice is how I helped screen my wife for gestational diabetes instead of that awful nukacola sugar slam they make pregnant women do and then check sugars at predetermined times when challenged with 50g rice or 50g sugar.

Anyways, yeah rice is basically the insulin dietary equivalent of sugar.

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#405
post #352

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Speaking as someone who has spent several months trying to adjust to a CPAP machine before finally giving up, it's not because it's annoying, it's because I literally can't sleep with the damn thing strapped onto my face. I'm well aware of the benefits, and I would love it if I could have them... but between sleep apnea and no sleep at all, the choice is obvious.

Everyone has a unique situation, but wanted to share my experience because improving apnea can have such a huge impact. I have a relatively mild case, so CPAP was borderline but I tried it. Like you spent 4 months and never got past 3 hours in one night, even trying several masks. Gave up for a year, worked on sleep hygiene in general and tried again. After about 2 weeks of a new mask and adjusting settings slept thr…

I have a friend who got a CPAP and was happily sleeping with it on the first day, 5 minutes in. I'm very envious, but... I've already tried several different masks, went to the supplier to have them adjust that stuff to fit me etc.

At the end of the day, we are all different, and the threshold for what physical sensations a person can tolerate is highly variable. Everyone understands that about pain (I hope!), but this goes just as much for all these other things that are not necessarily painful as such, but are still physical.

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The process of cooling down converts starches in rice, pasta, potatoes etc... to a more resistant forms that your body cannot process easily.

Does chilling also work to convert bread starches into resistant ones, or does it only work for rice and potatoes?

GP mentioned bread specifically. I looked up some studies, and they are in agreement: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17426743/

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#407

I recently had an unusual health event that resulted in me passing out. My wife, who is a physician, thought it might be hypoglycemia, since i'm at high risk for diabetes. She found a super friendly endocrinologist who put me on a CGM for two weeks. I never hit the hypoglycemia range during those two weeks, so it didn't really explain what my issue... but honestly the data was SUPER interesting. Just observing the va…

I personally wouldn't mind having the data if a need comes up, but this is simply overtracking for no particular purpose. Basically, our bodies go through much "turmoil" over the course of any day, and watching over one too many parameters is like getting hooked to TV or a video game. Generally, medical science can mostly tell you what averages or most common patterns are, so if you do not line up with them and don't…

Getting hooked on smooth blood sugar changes sounds like a possible counterweight to what our brains are designed to get hooked on... Oreos.

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#408

I did this for fun using the veri.co service. It was interesting how little my diet immediately affected my blood sugar. Non diet things were much bigger. Do hard exercise -> spike. Take a hot shower -> spike. Fast for 48 hours -> blood sugar still rises in the morning. Walking was by far the most effective way to keep blood sugar down after a meal. Most of what I ate didn't cause a problem. However tend avoid sugar…

> hot shower -> spike Assuming this was a Libre, this is likely reader inaccuracy that does not reflect an actual blood glucose event.

That makes sense and I was wondering if it might be related to the device temp. I should have tried putting a hot pack on the sensor to validate.

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am prediabetic and I have one. It's partly covered by insurance. By the metrics my estimated average glucose has gone down from 129 to 98 or so (normal). I haven't had my HbA1c in awhile. I think they are amazing. It's been SO HELPFUL. However I don't think it makes sense for normal people. I am on a reddit group for prediabetes and it's not unusual that people who are underweight (anorexic?) and have completely no…

> I was shocked at how much I spiked from oatmeal. Was it oatmeal, or what you ate oatmeal with (milk, sweetener, etc), or do you know?

The people at Levels, who do continuous glucose monitoring, say that oatmeal is one of the worst offenders.

You really need to spike your oatmeal with fats, protein, and fiber.

I regularly eat steel-cut oats for breakfast. My go-to is steel-cut oats, two tablespoons of Chia seeds mixed in (tons of fat and fiber), and a serving of mixed nuts and berries on top. On the side, I eat four scoops of powdered peanut butter mixed with water. This version of peanut butter is much higher in protein and much lower in fat and calories than normal peanut butter.

Doing all of this can keep the spikes to a reasonable amount (I also eat the powdered peanut butter first). Any kind of oatmeal by itself is bad. Instant oatmeal is worse. Instant oatmeal with all that sugar and stuff thrown in is terrible.

I suspect if you made your oatmeal with milk instead of water, it would help a lot, but I can't do this from being lactose intolerant.

Re: FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

#410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that a single sensor will work for only a week or two, depending on the type. So it's not exactly right to compare the price to a smartwatch.

Ah okay, thanks for telling me that; I thought you keep recharging the battery every week from the description.

No. They are single-use, and it embeds into your skin with a probe.
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