Health and fitness fanatics are biohacking blood glucose to optimise energy, performance and more. But at what cost?
One woman’s hea lth-sav ing dev ice is a nother woman’s… lifest yle tracker? That ’s the trick y question at the hear t of the rising interest in glucose monitoring for active, hea lthy people. As the main suga r found in our blood, glucose is a big deal – it ’s our chief source of energy. So it ’s no sur prise that severa l sta r t-ups are advocating for the need to keep tabs on this hea lth ma rker to boost energ y, optimise workouts and more.
With this new focus on glucose comes the promotion of continuous glucose monitor (CGM) dev ices, ma king them seem just a nother trendy tool. But ex per ts and people with diabetes have reser vations about watching blood suga r levels a round the clock when you’re genera lly hea lthy – and doing it with tech that other patients need to live. So how impor ta nt is understa nding glucose as part of overa ll hea lth? And do CGMs ma ke sense if you don’t have a medical condition?
Glucose – tell me more...
When you eat or drink something that contains carbs, your body breaks it down into basic chemical components, one of which is sugar. This enters your bloodstream and is carried to cells, where it’s used for energy. The process is of great interest to athletes. Muscles use glucose (a simple sugar) to power movements, says Caroline Apovian, an internist (a doctor of general internal medicine) and co-director of the Center for Weight Management and Wellness at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. Carb-loading before races is done because taking in sugar is the only way to increase blood glucose, and expending energy (which burns glucose) lowers it.
When you consume that carbcontaining food or drink, your blood glucose level rises, says Disha Narang, an endocrinologist at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital, Illinois. Then your pancreas releases insulin, a hormone that transports the glucose into the cells. This transfer ultimately reduces the level of sugar in your blood, bringing it back to normal.
Why do people with diabetes track their blood sugar?
Here’s the deal: if you don’t have diabetes, your body process
