#25: 🍰 Monitoring Your Blood Sugar is Not Just For Diabetics
#25: 🍰 Monitoring Your Blood Sugar is Not Just For Diabetics
Hacks to keep your blood glucose in check & why it matters
Hi Friends,
Today’s note marks 6 months of Nina’s Notes. In honor of this milestone, reply to me with a topic you’d like to see covered in an upcoming newsletter.
I write this newsletter to make science easy to understand. I want to cover your favorite topics. 🙂
Enjoy #25!
💬 In this note:
🍰 Monitoring Your Blood Sugar is Not Just For Diabetics
🍄 Nevada To Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms
📚 Glucose Revolution
🍰 Monitoring Your Blood Sugar is Not Just For Diabetics Anymore
80% of American Adults are overweight or obese. Only 12% of Americans have a healthy metabolic system.
This. is. NOT. ok
We can take control back of our metabolism, weight and health. One core component is understanding your blood glucose.
Monitoring blood glucose isn’t just for diabetics. We can all benefit from understanding how our blood glucose levels change after eating certain foods.
What is blood glucose?
Your body needs glucose for energy, but too much can be harmful. When we eat our body breaks food down into glucose which enters our bloodstream. Insulin helps regulate blood glucose levels and will use the glucose for energy or store it for later.
We want to keep our glucose levels in a normal range when fasting that is 70-99 mg/dL and up to 140 mg/dL two hours after a meal. Diabetics can have blood glucose spikes over 300 mg/dL after a meal.
Why do we want to keep our blood glucose in that range?
When our blood glucose is high or low, this can affect our mood. Poor management of blood sugar can mirror mental health symptoms, such as irritability, anxiety and worry. And, of course, one that probably many of us are familiar with is being hangry (hungry and angry) when we have low blood sugar.
High blood sugar can be associated with anger and sadness, but it is also very damaging to molecules within the body. When our glucose spikes to high levels repeatedly, it can promote cellular aging. This can also trigger the production of advanced glycation end products (aptly named AGEs) that can lead to serious health conditions and advanced aging. Reducing the production of AGEs can support longevity and health span, and that can be managed by tracking your glucose in real-time.
What can I do to control my blood glucose?
Start every meal with a veggie. This was a simple but revolutionary hack I learned from the author of this week’s Book of the Week, Jessie Inchauspé. She is THE glucose biohacker. She runs the @glucosegoddess instagram account and community, and her new book, The Glucose Goddess Method, is coming out May 2, 2023.
On her instagram account, she has awesome graphs of how different foods spike blood sugar and what combinations of foods will stop a spike.
My biggest take away from her book was that starting any meal with veggies will stop a huge blood sugar spike.
Her book is full of hacks to balance your blood glucose and keep it from spiking & improve your health. My favorite 6 are:
Eat a savory breakfast, not a sweet one
Don’t eat sugar on an empty stomach, instead have it for dessert after a meal
Add a veggie starter to all your meals
Eat in this order: veggies🥦🥕, protein & fats🥩🥑, starches 🥖🍚🥔 and sugars🍦.
Go for a 10 minute walk (or use your muscles in another way) after meals
Before eating, drink a glass of water with 1 tablespoon of vinegar diluted in it
Those hacks are awesome! How can I monitor my blood glucose?
Diabetics are prescribed a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), or a finger-prick blood glucose reader to monitor and manage their blood sugar levels. CGMs are a huge step up from the finger-prick reader. They can monitor blood glucose 24 hours a day and give real-time responses to how your body responds to foods.
Recently, a CGM was approved by the FDA for healthy people to monitor their blood glucose and you can get assess from a handful of consumer healthtech companies such as:
Current CGMs work through a tiny sensor inserted under your skin, on your belly or your arm and tests for blood glucose every few minutes. Consumer CGM companies offer monthly plans which include 2 CGMs per month (you wear them for 2 weeks before you need to replace them) and dietary support.
Is there a better option that does have to prick your skin?
Yes. It’s called a non-invasive CGM. Developing a non-invasive CGM has been a goal for many companies over the last decade with some progressing and many failing. The ultimate goal is to incorporate a non-invasive CGM into a wearable, like a FitBit or AppleWatch, and make monitoring blood glucose as effortless as tracking heart rate and steps.
Who’s working on it?
1️⃣ NovioSense has developed a glucose sensor that is placed under the lower eyelid where it can wirelessly measure glucose and send measurements to a smartphone. They just completed Phase II clinical trials.
2️⃣ Quantune GmbH is developing a low-cost miniaturized quantum cascade laser (QCL) spectrometer to detect glucose molecules, and other biologically relevant molecules, through the skin for biomedical consumer devices and industrial applications
3️⃣ Apple has been developing a non-invasive CGM for the last decade and rumor has it that it is finally at the proof-of-concept stage. (game over?)
🍄 Nevada To Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms
Nevada Sen. Rochelle Nguyen (D) introduced bill SB242 to legalize psilocybin and promote research into psychedelics for mental health applications.
Beyond research, a section of the bill would broadly legalize psilocybin for adults 18 and older.
Nevada is joining a rapidly growing list of states where legislators are pursuing policy reform on psychedelics this session.
Also this month, Vermont lawmakers filed legislation to decriminalize and legalize psychedelics for adults, and Texas lawmakers filed a series of bills aimed at promoting and expanding psychedelics research in the state.
📚 Book of the Week
Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspé
5/5 Stars
The book is super interesting and full of easy to implement food hacks to keep your blood glucose levels stable.
I met the author, Jessie Inchauspé, at a VC’s Founder Summit back in 2019. She was wearing a continuous glucose monitor before they were readily available and trendy, although she does not have diabetes.
She was optimizing her blood glucose levels in real time and researching for her upcoming book. She is a #1 international best seller with her book Glucose Revolution which has been translated into 30+ languages.
⚡️ Check This Out
The new sleek spacesuits that the Artemis 3 team will wear on the moon in 2025.
The new spacesuit is designed to also fit women.
ahem…it’s about damn time
The new design will help NASA reach its goal of landing the first woman on the moon during Artemis 3.
The orange, light blue and navy blue accents are not the actual colors of the suit. When they land on the moon, the astronauts will wear white to keep them cool in space. The colored cover layer keeps the space suit protected on Earth and also protects the innovation from copycats.
Look into metabolic balance. One way to help keeping your glucose spiking and hangry pangs in check is through eating carbs that have a lower glycemic index. For example, substitute your wheat for rye and if you are eating wheat, go for the heritage varieties rather then the modern ones. Try Emmer or Einkorn, for example. And always go for whole-wheat. The fiber really adds!