Should You Use a Glucose Monitor if You’re Not Diabetic?
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The Trend: Contiguous glucose monitors (CGMs) used to be exclusive to people with diabetes. Now, they’re a dime a dozen and can be purchased without a prescription. Aligned with the growing interest in biohacking, even healthy individuals are sticking CGMs on their arms and adding blood glucose to their list of tracked biomarkers.
What People Are Saying: Experts warn that wearing a CGM may pile on the information overload many of us already face due to wearables. “We don’t actually know that monitoring or manipulating CGM glucose levels in people without diabetes can improve health,” says one doctor — who cautions that tracking glucose spikes and dips (which are a regular response to food and lifestyle factors) could lead to unnecessary anxiety.
What to Know: Wearing a CGM simply isn’t necessary for individuals without diabetes, and may do more harm than good. They are prone to errors, more so in people with healthy glucose levels, and it’s common for individuals to misinterpret readings. When someone with diabetes wears a prescribed CGM, their physician interprets those readings — a benefit you may not have access to as a non-diabetic person.
