Question
I’m obese, but I haven’t got diabetes yet. Should I take advantage of a continuous glucose monitor, like individuals with diabetes do?
Oh Increasingly, latest technologies are allowing us to watch how our bodies are doing. Smart watches and specialized rings monitor the steps we take and the flights we take, our heart and respiratory rates, and the oxygen levels in our blood.
People with diabetes need to watch their blood sugar levels, often several times a day, to ensure that they do not get too high or too low. When I used to be starting my medical profession, measuring blood sugar levels required venipuncture (using a needle to attract a blood sample). This was not something that a patient could do, as an alternative we asked patients to gather several urine samples a day and use a kit to measure the sugar level in it. It gave a crude indication when blood sugar was too high, but didn’t help determine when sugar was too low.
Then, latest technology allowed people to prick their fingertip, collect a drop of blood on a special test strip, and use a machine to measure blood sugar levels. It was more accurate than a urine test and more feasible than multiple venipunctures per day, but people didn’t very like pricking their fingers. Not their fingers.
Then got here continuous glucose monitoring technology. A small device sticks to the skin, and a small sensor underneath the device pushes painlessly into the skin. The sensor repeatedly monitors the sugar level and sends this information wirelessly to a different device (equivalent to a smartphone) where an individual can easily see the sugar level. With some devices, an alarm sounds when the sugar is simply too high or too low. Continuous glucose monitors will be expensive and usually are not all the time covered by insurance.
You ask whether you need to use a continuous glucose monitor, though you wouldn’t have diabetes. There are relatively few studies of this query. At this time, there isn’t a solid evidence of the worth of those monitors in individuals who wouldn’t have diabetes.
What will future studies show? I’m significantly better at predicting the past than predicting the long run, but here it’s: My bet is that these devices may have no value in individuals who haven’t got risk aspects for diabetes. On the opposite hand, they might be of value in some individuals who have risk aspects for diabetes – equivalent to people who find themselves obese (such as you), individuals who have somewhat high blood sugar levels, and folks who’ve a family history of diabetes. But it can have to be scientifically established before such monitors will be used. or before insurance is more likely to pay them.
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