Metabolic · 4 min
Continuous glucose monitoring, beyond diabetes
Continuous glucose monitors were built for people with diabetes, but their real value for everyone else is pedagogical. For two weeks, they make the invisible visible: how a specific meal, a poor night's sleep, a stressful meeting or a 10-minute walk changes your physiology in real time.
What a CGM is good at
Showing you your personal response to specific foods (which can vary several-fold between individuals eating identical meals), the cost of late-night carbohydrate, the protective effect of a post-meal walk, and the glucose imprint of poor sleep or acute stress. Most people learn more about their metabolism in two weeks of CGM than in a decade of annual blood tests.
What it is not good at
Diagnosing dysglycaemia in non-diabetics — interstitial glucose lags blood glucose by 5–15 minutes and accuracy at low values is poor. Spikes after a piece of fruit are not pathology. The goal is not flatlining; it is awareness, pattern recognition, and reasonable variability (a standard deviation under ~15 mg/dL is a sensible target for healthy adults).
How to actually use one
Wear it for 10–14 days. Eat normally for the first three. Then experiment: same meal at breakfast vs dinner, with and without a walk after, after a good vs bad night's sleep. The point is not to chase a flat line — it is to discover the small set of personal levers that move your physiology most.
What to do this week
- If curious, run a single 14-day sensor — one is usually enough to learn your patterns.
- Pair it with a simple food and sleep log.
- Test the same meal twice: once sedentary, once followed by a 10-minute walk.
- Stop wearing it once you have your patterns. CGM is a teacher, not a lifelong companion for healthy people.