7 ms·

It wasn't for me. Individual anecdotal stories aren't evidence but without consistent feedback it's easy to get back into poor habits. When I eat a Twizzler and

It wasn't for me. Individual anecdotal stories aren't evidence but without consistent feedback it's easy to get back into poor habits. When I eat a Twizzler and see my blood glucose spike at 180-200 FOR 1 TWIZZLER then it's the feedback I need. It's no different to me than frequent weighings. I'm sure some people don't need or want the feedback but for me it's essential. And using a CGM (I use 14 day Lifestyle) I can get readings whenever I want and also get data like trends that I can't get from finger sticks. I can see my blood glucose overnight for example which helps me tailor my meds and food to avoid the common overnight glucose rise that's pretty common. So sorry NYTimes article but I'm going to disagree. I don't think enough people are encouraged to use CGM for example so that some real data can be extracted on diet compliance.

jwhite_nc 7y ago
Data drives me to do better.
- onetimemanytime 7y ago
  Unless it misleads you. One can "lose" 2 lbs...by weighing before drinking water after a run. Did you really lose 2 lbs?
  - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
    Weight loss isn't really a good analogy. It's much more about trends over time than any individual data point. When we're talking about diabetics and blood sugar, one data point could be the difference between life and death.
  - xurias 7y ago
    If you're allowing a single data point to have that much power over what or how you think, you've already lost. Especially if you decide to ignore context like "I just lost water by running and I haven't had anything to drink yet", or even important variables like time of day. The number by itself is meaningless. Data (as in a ton of data points) with context can be incredibly useful. Don't blame the tool if you don't learn how to use it properly.
    - notretarded 7y ago
      Oh to be blessed with decent analytical intelligence. Not everyone is, however.
  - colechristensen 7y ago
    If you're misled by thinking you lost 2 pounds when instead you just lost some water, you are missing some pretty essential data.
- randcraw 7y ago
  This is the point. If you don't use the additional info somehow -- like eating or exercising differently based on info like BG fingersticks -- merely adding more info achieves zero. That should be the takeaway lesson from this study. Just because some people stuck their fingers and gathered BG numbers three times a day does not mean they acted on that info to change their health. Until health pros make this clear to patients, that they need to actually use this info to adapt their lifestyle on a daily basis, there's simply no point in gathering daily info like this. And certainly not at a frequency of 3 or 4 times a day. Once you've dialed in your lifestyle into regular eating and exercise habits, repeatedly gathering daily numbers is redundant overkill. Gathering BG numbers no more than one day a week should suffice, just to confirm you remain homeostatic. Gathering info, by itself, changes nothing. (BTW, I've had T2D for 15 years now. So I've walked the walk.)
jp555 7y ago
I'm glad you found something that works for you, but this is massively over-complicated for almost everyone. Constant glucose tracking is interesting, but completely unnecessary. EDIT - For most healthy individuals. It's like my father-in-law who obsesses over vitamins while he ignores being ~40 pounds overweight - he needs to simply eat less & move more, not keep reading articles until he uncovers some magic combination of micronutrients. Beef spikes insulin just as much as rice does. Acute insulin spikes are not bad, and can be very beneficial. Chronically elevated insulin is not good, but it's almost always simple to address that - just eat less, less often. But people seem to prefer to focus on complicating easy things instead of consistently doing simple but difficult things.
- buckthundaz 7y ago
  >Beef spikes insulin just as much as rice does. Citation?
  - jp555 7y ago
    https://watermark.silverchair.com/1264.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAlowggJWBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggJHMIICQwIBADCCAjwGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMuFO-SV_7okpNmLHhAgEQgIICDWztyhmOsY057_KpYdVzU3p15v1M_ZE5Ml_XBAE2FZtygnMHfpOqqFFDLo5jmo8eAz_fCn93UBQJl77W3Cf-k8txFwzdz8BB_R1FBWw5h3nkJfFYfCPnKif-j2GmYwLEPW-KxOKD1aYk925gwRxJZYXXKoCryEvvC7iwyPxuokjFAEp2-S6lflTJrh6DBvGP0AMidJc3BUv7Q6v9XrU6P7guJT5juHvLDuHg4lJ-RQNEFXAHvv9U3sVDZww5ICVOlLyMpyTc0ZBaQm7EtNQ4wMauiJfbfjXFIcalSuweT1qGdLDaOTOEnfvsIlMTQEwIY310a98VtmLKOabtjXnhXHrPzt_t3iKCsUu6R9gb3PcrjO1csejtJrtPiUQ19SOpGH92WeLID6C918WNeIMXBXIN6kGaqvZ7lO2Migd0LyC0iIS1TJk9jqnGaSbpWMYA10-0KiJX9xldO-3kdOcaKHWn7Hh1iFRzMeDkjvqXtIV5l-gnJj8DNUAIokkwEi09w2RSnwOxbkLh_KMou_EQVbwRg6Qrk6ZNqjKevXBF6a0HxeE6ubKKKsjgcFpm6lkA-BMAJfXrQihC3c168BoJwuM9WI1y_g_FMpeKFLxgMNjNFxHYu_JR6M6ILlW1bQqEF5da8ewZn2XvocACK9vHN3apQOvUwQYGMuf4JQaEdJ7LeikzHN2bkrALpyZqAw#page=1&. https://watermark.silverchair.com/1264.pdf?token=AQECAHi208B....
- friedegg 7y ago
  As a type 1 diabetic, I can tell you beef does not spike blood glucose and resulting insulin response just as much as rice as does. Protein usually takes about half the dosage for the same amount of grams (ie 10g of carbs / 5g of protein), and it does it more slowly. For many type 1 diabetics on non low-carb diets, protein is eaten in small enough amounts with large enough amounts of carbs that you usually don't factor it into your dosage.
James_Henry 7y ago
The NYTimes article isn't about continuous glucose monitoring.

jwhite_nc 7y ago

Data drives me to do better.

onetimemanytime 7y ago
Unless it misleads you. One can "lose" 2 lbs...by weighing before drinking water after a run. Did you really lose 2 lbs?
- SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
  Weight loss isn't really a good analogy. It's much more about trends over time than any individual data point. When we're talking about diabetics and blood sugar, one data point could be the difference between life and death.
- xurias 7y ago
  If you're allowing a single data point to have that much power over what or how you think, you've already lost. Especially if you decide to ignore context like "I just lost water by running and I haven't had anything to drink yet", or even important variables like time of day. The number by itself is meaningless. Data (as in a ton of data points) with context can be incredibly useful. Don't blame the tool if you don't learn how to use it properly.
  - notretarded 7y ago
    Oh to be blessed with decent analytical intelligence. Not everyone is, however.
- colechristensen 7y ago
  If you're misled by thinking you lost 2 pounds when instead you just lost some water, you are missing some pretty essential data.
randcraw 7y ago
This is the point. If you don't use the additional info somehow -- like eating or exercising differently based on info like BG fingersticks -- merely adding more info achieves zero. That should be the takeaway lesson from this study. Just because some people stuck their fingers and gathered BG numbers three times a day does not mean they acted on that info to change their health. Until health pros make this clear to patients, that they need to actually use this info to adapt their lifestyle on a daily basis, there's simply no point in gathering daily info like this. And certainly not at a frequency of 3 or 4 times a day. Once you've dialed in your lifestyle into regular eating and exercise habits, repeatedly gathering daily numbers is redundant overkill. Gathering BG numbers no more than one day a week should suffice, just to confirm you remain homeostatic. Gathering info, by itself, changes nothing. (BTW, I've had T2D for 15 years now. So I've walked the walk.)

jp555 7y ago

I'm glad you found something that works for you, but this is massively over-complicated for almost everyone. Constant glucose tracking is interesting, but completely unnecessary. EDIT - For most healthy individuals. It's like my father-in-law who obsesses over vitamins while he ignores being ~40 pounds overweight - he needs to simply eat less & move more, not keep reading articles until he uncovers some magic combination of micronutrients. Beef spikes insulin just as much as rice does. Acute insulin spikes are not bad, and can be very beneficial. Chronically elevated insulin is not good, but it's almost always simple to address that - just eat less, less often. But people seem to prefer to focus on complicating easy things instead of consistently doing simple but difficult things.

buckthundaz 7y ago
>Beef spikes insulin just as much as rice does. Citation?
- jp555 7y ago
  https://watermark.silverchair.com/1264.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAlowggJWBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggJHMIICQwIBADCCAjwGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMuFO-SV_7okpNmLHhAgEQgIICDWztyhmOsY057_KpYdVzU3p15v1M_ZE5Ml_XBAE2FZtygnMHfpOqqFFDLo5jmo8eAz_fCn93UBQJl77W3Cf-k8txFwzdz8BB_R1FBWw5h3nkJfFYfCPnKif-j2GmYwLEPW-KxOKD1aYk925gwRxJZYXXKoCryEvvC7iwyPxuokjFAEp2-S6lflTJrh6DBvGP0AMidJc3BUv7Q6v9XrU6P7guJT5juHvLDuHg4lJ-RQNEFXAHvv9U3sVDZww5ICVOlLyMpyTc0ZBaQm7EtNQ4wMauiJfbfjXFIcalSuweT1qGdLDaOTOEnfvsIlMTQEwIY310a98VtmLKOabtjXnhXHrPzt_t3iKCsUu6R9gb3PcrjO1csejtJrtPiUQ19SOpGH92WeLID6C918WNeIMXBXIN6kGaqvZ7lO2Migd0LyC0iIS1TJk9jqnGaSbpWMYA10-0KiJX9xldO-3kdOcaKHWn7Hh1iFRzMeDkjvqXtIV5l-gnJj8DNUAIokkwEi09w2RSnwOxbkLh_KMou_EQVbwRg6Qrk6ZNqjKevXBF6a0HxeE6ubKKKsjgcFpm6lkA-BMAJfXrQihC3c168BoJwuM9WI1y_g_FMpeKFLxgMNjNFxHYu_JR6M6ILlW1bQqEF5da8ewZn2XvocACK9vHN3apQOvUwQYGMuf4JQaEdJ7LeikzHN2bkrALpyZqAw#page=1&. https://watermark.silverchair.com/1264.pdf?token=AQECAHi208B....
friedegg 7y ago
As a type 1 diabetic, I can tell you beef does not spike blood glucose and resulting insulin response just as much as rice as does. Protein usually takes about half the dosage for the same amount of grams (ie 10g of carbs / 5g of protein), and it does it more slowly. For many type 1 diabetics on non low-carb diets, protein is eaten in small enough amounts with large enough amounts of carbs that you usually don't factor it into your dosage.

James_Henry 7y ago

The NYTimes article isn't about continuous glucose monitoring.