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Diet Doctor Podcast · March 20, 2023 · 45m
What Can CGMs Teach Us About Metabolic Health?
Dr. Scher explores what continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) reveal about metabolic health in non-diabetic people — why glucose variability matters, how individual foods produce wildly different glucose responses, and the limitations of CGM data.
Highlights
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Individual glucose responses to identical foods vary by 3-5x — one person's health food is another's sugar bomb
Scher: CGM data from thousands of non-diabetic users shows that glucose responses to identical meals vary by 300-500% between individuals. A banana might spike one person to 180 mg/dL while barely moving another above 110 mg/dL. Population-level dietary advice cannot capture this variation.•
Glucose variability — not just average glucose — predicts metabolic health outcomes
Scher: CGM data reveals that glycemic variability (the size and frequency of glucose spikes and crashes) may be a better predictor of metabolic health than average glucose or HbA1c. Large glucose swings stress the vascular system even when average glucose is 'normal.'