In a recent article, Peter Attia, MD, a longevity specialist, explained some of the problems with dietary sugar. He wrote that:
High glucose variability and higher (peak) glucose levels are each independently associated with accelerated onset of disease and death, even in non-diabetics. Prospective studies show that higher glucose variability in non-diabetics is associated with an increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, frailty, cardiovascular death, cancer death, and death from any cause compared to lower glucose variability. . .
More than 120 million Americans have diabetes or pre-diabetes… in the vast majority of cases, today’s normal individual is tomorrow’s diabetic patient if something isn’t done to detect and prevent the slide. . .
Lower [glucose levels] is better than higher when it comes to average glucose, glucose variability, and glucose peaks, even in non-diabetics.
You can read the full article on his website if you’re interested.
“Spending 30 minutes a day with glucose levels above 140 mg/dL may be the benchmark in this population, but that does not mean it’s optimal. The target I want my patients to hit in terms of the number of total glucose excursions above 140 mg/dL per week is zero…Going back to the first argument from the perspective, it may be true that aside from anecdotal accounts, there’s little evidence that people with normal glucose responses benefit from tracking their blood glucose, but don’t confuse an absence of evidence with evidence of absence.”
Ive also highlighted the above quotes from the article.
I’m very much in favour of CGMs. The problem I have found with people who wear them is, as Peter Attia identifies, the wrong interpretation of the results due to the suboptimal averages of an unhealthy population and which naturally leads to little improvement to their health.
It also underscores a general problem with interpretation of medical tests and why so many “healthy people” succumbed to covid!