FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor

Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by pcorsaro on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @04:21PM (#39621646)

I'm not the OP, but I had a CGM several times through Levels. I can tell you that the major spikes (glucose over 200 after sitting between 80-90) really made me feel like shit. The 2 times I can remember it getting that high were when I had too much sushi, and a huge bowl with white rice from Chipotle. Brown rice never seemed to spike me nearly as bad, especially if paired with something high in fiber like black/brown beans. From a long term health perspective, I have no idea if it's a problem or not. I didn't like how bigger spikes felt, so there's probably something to it being bad for you long term. Obviously the more often you spike as a "healthy" person, the less sensitive your body is to insulin. Staying even on my glucose levels is always where I felt the best.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by EasyMark on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @08:49PM (#39624185)

straight rice and bread break down into sugars -very- quickly in the stomach, that's why mixing them with stuff like you mentioned (heavy in fat and/or protein) can really dampen the spikes in my own observations. Those are just anectdotal though and what works for me doesn't work for everyone. I do like to eat a salad first with some good fibrous veggies though OR something like eat some of a chicken/fish entrée or steak if I'm having that as part of a meal.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by anorwell on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @03:54PM (#39621291)

The longevity people think that blood glucose levels are an important predictor for rate of (biological) aging. See e.g. https://www.lifespan.io/topic/blood-glucose-is-a-biomarker-o...

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by Attummm on Thursday March 07, 2024 @02:47AM (#39626295)

Well, they're not just people. They are longevity scientists.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by 1234letshaveatw on Thursday March 07, 2024 @12:01PM (#39631351)

longevity scientists are just people

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by pie420 on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @03:11PM (#39620762)

Not a doctor, but from what I have seen, there is a healthy amount of spiking from eating normal foods, but our modern diets are so sugar and carb heavy that the glucose spikes are way outside the range that our bodies evolved to handle. Hunter gatherers would maybe eat some berries here (much smaller and less sweet than modern berries) and there. The modern human eating pizza, tons of bread, ice cream, soda, etc. creates such massive glucose spikes that they are unhealthy and unsustainable for the pancreas to handle for 60+ years.

Again, not a doctor and not sure if this is accurate, but this is my very limited understanding

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by throwup238 on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @03:54PM (#39621289)

> Hunter gatherers would maybe eat some berries here (much smaller and less sweet than modern berries) and there.

Archaic humans had access to plenty of wild that were high in sugar and tubers that were high in complex carbs. They even had access to concentrated forms of sugar like sugarcane and honey.

They obviously didn't have refined sugars like we do but that they had access to limited sugar in the form of berries is a persistent myth.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by amenghra on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @04:23PM (#39621674)

We live 2x-3x longer than we used to. We should take the best possible care of our bodies.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by Fricken on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @08:34PM (#39624088)

Only as a statistical average. Hunter gatherers who survived past age 5 had a good chance of living into their 60s and 70s.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by amenghra on Thursday March 07, 2024 @10:05AM (#39629949)

There would be skeletal evidence of that. The oldest remains of early humans points to 35-40 year olds with high child mortality rates per https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/people-lived-up-to-40-year...

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by CadmiumYellow on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @04:59PM (#39622205)

Not to mention humans 150 years ago who ate plenty of bread and still didn't have the problems we have with obesity and diabetes. Or even 50 years ago...

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by NoPicklez on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @06:12PM (#39622976)

That could also be because a fair amount of the bread in supermarkets today is closer to confectionary than homemade sourdough.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by EasyMark on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @09:03PM (#39624286)

light bread starts turning into sugar almost instantly in the mouth and stomach. It's only one step removed and saliva can break it down quickly because it has amylase. Sour dough and whole wheat/grain breads tend to break down a bit slower. You can freeze bread overnight and make it a bit more "resistant" to breaking down quickly and I pretty much do this with all my breads along with toasting them a bit for sandwiches. Pasta can similarly have its glycemic index lowered by first making it "cold"

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by int_19h on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @11:17PM (#39625011)

Do you mean that they need to be cold when they are consumed, or is it the process of freezing itself that does something, even if it's later reheated?

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by imp0cat on Thursday March 07, 2024 @02:31AM (#39626187)

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

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by thimkerbell on Thursday March 07, 2024 @08:46AM (#39628964)

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

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by int_19h on Thursday March 07, 2024 @01:57PM (#39633147)

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

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by imp0cat on Thursday March 14, 2024 @08:32AM (#39703067)

A starch is a starch.

However, this study seems to compare freshly baked bread to a frozen/toasted one.

I'd guess that the difference will be smaller when regular store-bought bread is used instead.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by amanaplanacanal on Thursday March 07, 2024 @06:13AM (#39627609)

They don’t need to be cold when consumed.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by TylerE on Thursday March 07, 2024 @04:16AM (#39626893)

That’s not really a fair statement. Many problem who would die of diabetes today would have died of something else 200 years ago long before the diabetes got them. Non-juvenile diabetes is a slow killer, it’s really hard for it to kill you before the age of reproduction.

A diagnosis today that is imminently manageable like asthma was far more readily in a world without antibiotics, steroids, or even medical oxygen.

Even something like a CPAP that many of us take for granted has only been readily available for 30 years or so.

Plus, diabetes is much like AIDS in that it’s more of a systemic thing than acute. It doesn’t really have symptoms that kill you. It just slowly weakens your body until your heart gives in, or you have a serious infection, or something like that. No one dies “of” diabetes, they die with it.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by cableshaft on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @05:07PM (#39622322)

They also moved around more than most people do today. Most of us are stuck sitting pretty much all day in front of a computer.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by EasyMark on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @08:51PM (#39624206)

fruit and berries do have sugars but in their wild state they tend to have much less than their modern equivalents bred to be sweeter and tastier. Even then they still typically are 75-95% water and often have some fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins which all can help with inflammation unlike snickers bars.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by watwut on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @04:43PM (#39621987)

I have better life expectancy then them.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by jablongo on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @07:04PM (#39623447)

It's not really that the pancreas itself can't handle it (though this may be true also). What happens is that having high blood glucose, even if it's not continuously high, is just bad for you by virtue of the high concentration of glucose in your blood. Having high blood glucose leads to the creation of "Advanced Glycation Endproducts" (AGEs) which bind to certain receptors (RAGEs). The AGE-RAGE interaction is linked to downstream diabetes side effects like atherosclerosis.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by philsnow on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @07:20PM (#39623555)

There's also research that indicates that cancer thrives in high-glucose environment, and that starving cancers of glucose reduces their size over time.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by 462436347 on Thursday March 07, 2024 @05:37PM (#39635469)

Wrong:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by T1DTech on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @04:57PM (#39622179)

With Type 1 Diabetes, your pancreas is no longer producing insulin, with Type 2, it's typically that it's not producing enough insulin. My child is healthy, but his pancreas stopped producing insulin years ago. He lives with T1D.

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Re:FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor by smt88 on Wednesday March 06, 2024 @11:03PM (#39624932)

My A1c is right on the edge of prediabetes, so I wasn't as concerned about the spikes as I was about my baseline, how long spikes last, etc.

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