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Blood sugar monitoring is the latest craze in the dieting scene in Asia. You can not buy the little monitors online and people are doing it because they believe

Blood sugar monitoring is the latest craze in the dieting scene in Asia. You can not buy the little monitors online and people are doing it because they believe that a blood sugar spike is what is tied to obesity.

closewith 2y ago
Not just Asia. Limbo are selling this in the US, Ireland, and UK.
sabbaticaldev 2y ago
thanks god the latest craze is that in place of binging eating fast food and be proud of that
esperent 2y ago
Being able to know your blood sugar in reaction to the things you eat in realtime is simply incredible. Diabetes starts years or even decades before people have bad enough symptoms to get a diagnosis. If you are aware of which foods cause blood sugar spikes and learn to avoid them, you're doing something amazing for your future self. Of course, you don't necessarily need a device to know that it's going to be mostly high GI sugary foods that do that, but it does seem like this is more of a personal thing than people used to think, and the data from thousands of people without diagnosed diabetes will be highly useful. And who knows, there might be some surprises for you in there.
- vasco 2y ago
  > and the data from thousands of people without diagnosed diabetes will be highly useful What data? Presumably this is all private in each person's device. You make it sound like they also fixed compliance and privacy of collecting and analyzing all the data, which is a big deal.
  - blitzar 2y ago
    One example - https://zoe.com/our-science https://zoe.com/our-science A constant glucose monitor & diet app & membership which is also a "clinical trial".
    - vasco 2y ago
      That company has existed for a few years and the challenges I mentioned are exactly the challenges they are trying to solve. Sharing medical data is a hard space.
- pastage 2y ago
  Blood sugar monitoring with CGM is extremly expensive and potentially flaky. When you use it to monitor your blood sugar for medical reasons you still need to do professional controls. Diabetes Type-1 is an autoimmune disease it kills beta cells in the pancreas. They are slowly or quickly killed in the span of weeks or sometimes a couple of years. AFAIK once it has started it is impossible to stop at the moment. With type-2 I have no knowledge of a way to do a diagnosis decades before you get it, considering how different diabetes is between people I am sure you can catch some people. I have a hard time believing that CGM data will be usefull without deep context. I think the suppliers of these peripherals are way to good at sales pitch to be trusted.
  - esperent 2y ago
    > Blood sugar monitoring with CGM is extremly expensive I did check the prices before, it's about $100 a month (although I'm not in the US, maybe it's more there?). But you don't need to do it forever. A couple of weeks is probably enough to learn which foods to avoid. $100 on preventing yourself from getting diabetes later in life is a steal, and for many people seeing the proof that yes, chocolate cake really does spike your blood sugar to dangerous levels, might be the final push to make real lifestyle changes. > potentially flaky Why do you think that? All the ones I've seen are advertised as FDA approved devices. I expect that in another few years smartwatches will be able to mention it and suddenly it won't seem weird at all, everyone with a watch will be doing it.

closewith 2y ago

Not just Asia. Limbo are selling this in the US, Ireland, and UK.

sabbaticaldev 2y ago

thanks god the latest craze is that in place of binging eating fast food and be proud of that

esperent 2y ago

Being able to know your blood sugar in reaction to the things you eat in realtime is simply incredible. Diabetes starts years or even decades before people have bad enough symptoms to get a diagnosis. If you are aware of which foods cause blood sugar spikes and learn to avoid them, you're doing something amazing for your future self. Of course, you don't necessarily need a device to know that it's going to be mostly high GI sugary foods that do that, but it does seem like this is more of a personal thing than people used to think, and the data from thousands of people without diagnosed diabetes will be highly useful. And who knows, there might be some surprises for you in there.

vasco 2y ago
> and the data from thousands of people without diagnosed diabetes will be highly useful What data? Presumably this is all private in each person's device. You make it sound like they also fixed compliance and privacy of collecting and analyzing all the data, which is a big deal.
- blitzar 2y ago
  One example - https://zoe.com/our-science https://zoe.com/our-science A constant glucose monitor & diet app & membership which is also a "clinical trial".
  - vasco 2y ago
    That company has existed for a few years and the challenges I mentioned are exactly the challenges they are trying to solve. Sharing medical data is a hard space.
pastage 2y ago
Blood sugar monitoring with CGM is extremly expensive and potentially flaky. When you use it to monitor your blood sugar for medical reasons you still need to do professional controls. Diabetes Type-1 is an autoimmune disease it kills beta cells in the pancreas. They are slowly or quickly killed in the span of weeks or sometimes a couple of years. AFAIK once it has started it is impossible to stop at the moment. With type-2 I have no knowledge of a way to do a diagnosis decades before you get it, considering how different diabetes is between people I am sure you can catch some people. I have a hard time believing that CGM data will be usefull without deep context. I think the suppliers of these peripherals are way to good at sales pitch to be trusted.
- esperent 2y ago
  > Blood sugar monitoring with CGM is extremly expensive I did check the prices before, it's about $100 a month (although I'm not in the US, maybe it's more there?). But you don't need to do it forever. A couple of weeks is probably enough to learn which foods to avoid. $100 on preventing yourself from getting diabetes later in life is a steal, and for many people seeing the proof that yes, chocolate cake really does spike your blood sugar to dangerous levels, might be the final push to make real lifestyle changes. > potentially flaky Why do you think that? All the ones I've seen are advertised as FDA approved devices. I expect that in another few years smartwatches will be able to mention it and suddenly it won't seem weird at all, everyone with a watch will be doing it.