The fact that CGMs, which were previously primarily prescribed to diabetics, were made available for purchase over-the-counter (i.e., by anybody) last year seems to have helped the devices make their way from the Joe Roganosphere into the MAHA world. On Rogan’s podcast five years ago, physician Paul Saladino, who advocates for an “animal-based diet,” stated, “This is the kind of stuff that really tells you about your metabolic health.” With a continuous glucose monitor, lying is impossible. Since then, CGMs have gained support from pop-health physicians like Peter Attia and Mark Hyman, who referred to the device as “a gadget that has completely changed my life,” as well as from well-known wellness podcasts like Andrew Huberman’s Huberman Lab and Dave Asprey’s The Human Upgrade. CGMs can be “a pretty incredible tool to start to connect what you’re eating with what’s actually happening inside of your body,” according to wellness influencer the Glucose Goddess, who also provides a guide to them on her website. However, she acknowledged that they might not be for everyone. The empress of Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow, was recently seen sporting one.
A few years ago, Kim, an endocrinologist at Stanford, told me, “I was literally contacted by a start-up almost every month who wanted to incorporate a CGM into their products.” Naturally, some CGM providers focus on diabetics who require 24-hour monitoring. However, Kim and other individuals I spoke with expressed their suspicion that CGM manufacturers are attempting to reach out to those who are simply curious about sugar in order to increase sales.
“Stelo was originally designed for people with Type 2 diabetes who do not use insulin and those with prediabetes, but given the broad accessibility of this device, we are encouraged to see people without diabetes interested in learning more about their glucose and metabolic health,” Jake Leach, president of Dexcom, the company that makes the over-the-counter CGM Stelo, told me via email. I was informed by a Dexcom representative that the majority of individuals with prediabetes go undiagnosed. CGMs can help nondiabetics because “understanding your body’s glucose is key to managing your metabolism, so you can live healthier and better,” according to a statement from Fred St. Goar, a cardiologist and clinical adviser for Lingo.
Although there is little data on the number of non-diabetics purchasing CGMs, some healthcare professionals told me anecdotally that they are witnessing an increase. According to researcher and dietitian Nicola Guess of the University of Oxford, “ten years ago, no, I never saw anyone without diabetes with a CGM.” And I see a lot now. “They’re people who are already fairly healthy,” she said. CGMs are a continuation of the wearables trend in this way: It may seem like the next natural step in the “journey” to measure your blood sugar after you have an Oura Ring and a fitness tracker.
Should non-diabetics wear one of these? Wearing a CGM, at least temporarily, is probably acceptable for health enthusiasts who have $80 a month to spend and wish to observe how different foods impact their blood sugar. Spoiler alert: The readout will most likely only demonstrate that consuming refined carbohydrates, like pasta, white bread, and sweets, causes blood sugar levels to rise somewhat, at least momentarily.
Nondiabetic individuals typically have normal glucose patterns that differ significantly from day to day and from meal to meal. The “normal” range of 70 to 140 milligrams per deciliter is where the majority of blood-sugar readings in nondiabetics will normally fall. However, spikes above 140 will occasionally occur in many healthy individuals, and scientists are unsure if this is reason for alarm. When I asked, I frequently received the response, “Great question.” Kevin D. Hall, a former nutrition scientist at the National Institutes of Health, has conducted studies that have shown that, even in carefully regulated environments, people’s blood-sugar levels react significantly differently to the same meal when consumed on different occasions. A CGM might not be able to provide you with any particularly helpful information about your health because of all these inherent variations. Additionally, compared to other blood-sugar test methods, CGMs may not be as accurate. In a separate study, Hall and his colleagues implanted two distinct CGM brands on the same individual, occasionally resulting in two distinct blood-sugar readings. According to Hall, more research is required before non-diabetics can be advised to use CGMs.
Additionally, blood sugar is influenced by sleep, stress, exercise, and whether a meal contains fat or protein. A banana may not be the cause of a spike you experience after eating one. Given that sleep deprivation can alter the hormones that regulate blood sugar, it could be the four hours of sleep you had the night before. Therefore, even though some CGM enthusiasts promise it, Guess stated that “a CGM cannot tell you whether a single food is right for you.” According to Means, a CGM can assist you in “learning your reaction to individual foods and meals.”
Data tracking does encourage some people to adopt healthier habits. It’s not always a bad thing if you receive a clear readout from a CGM indicating that your blood sugar has increased after consuming refined carbohydrates, and it prompts you to consume fewer of them. However, there is currently no proof that wearing a CGM improves eating habits in non-diabetics. Additionally, you are likely already familiar with what constitutes a healthy diet if you are able to read a CGM. You could simply consume it. “You could just not wear it at all and tell yourself to eat more vegetables and a more plant-based diet and eat healthy, lean protein,” Anne Peters, a diabetes researcher at the University of Southern California, advised me.
Many of the biohackers who advocate for CGMs also advocate for a diet high in protein and low in carbohydrates, which would allow for a T-bone more easily than a Triscuit. (The creator of The Human Upgrade, Asprey, suggests adding butter to coffee.) One possible drawback of glucose monitoring is that individuals who are (possibly unnecessarily) alarmed by their CGM readings may substitute less healthful foods—like butter, bacon, and red meat—for healthier ones like fruit and whole grains. Blood sugar is unaffected by those foods, but other health indicators like body fat and cholesterol may be impacted. Your CGM will most likely display a flat, agreeable line after eating a stick of butter. However, your arteries might object.
When I had gestational diabetes and had to wear a continuous glucose monitor to control my blood sugar during my pregnancy, I became aware of these twisted incentives. A piece of cheesecake, which has a lot of fat to balance the sugar, would keep my blood-sugar reading safely below my target level of 135 while a bowl of heart-healthy oatmeal would send it skyrocketing to an unacceptable 157. For the benefit of my unborn child at the time, I wanted to eat anything that kept my blood sugar low. However, not many dietitians would suggest that healthy individuals substitute cheesecake for oatmeal every morning.
After all, glucose only makes up a small portion of the overall picture of human health. According to Guess, “blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, resting heart rate, and waist circumference are much better measures of how healthy someone is than glucose.” Furthermore, keeping an eye on your blood glucose reading in real time can turn into a kind of obsession—and not a completely healthy one. “There is a net harm when something is a waste of time,” Guess informed me. “I think it’s unethical to make people worry about things that never happen.”
According to a number of the researchers I interviewed, you can simply have an A1c blood test performed during your yearly physical if you are worried that you may have diabetes or prediabetes. It measures blood sugar just like a CGM, but it’s far less expensive and doesn’t require you to wear a device all the time. Additionally, if it indicates that you have a risk of type 2 diabetes, you could follow the advice of doctors for decades: Consume a diet high in lean meats and vegetables, and try to get some exercise every day. Nathan remarked, “Duh.”
Funding research on the effectiveness of CGMs and who benefits from them would be one way for Kennedy and other Trump administration officials to determine whether or not they live up to the hype. The exact opposite is taking place. Nathan’s diabetes-prevention study was recently frozen by the Trump administration, and Hall recently resigned from Trump’s NIH because he felt censored when discussing the findings of studies that disagreed with Kennedy’s opinions. Nearly 2,500 NIH grants, including some for blood glucose research, have been terminated or postponed by the administration thus far. The Kennedy-led HHS department could cease cutting off funding for researchers examining Americans’ health if it genuinely wanted to restore America’s health.
