The Glucose Revolution: CGMs Beyond Diabetes

The small white disc on your arm looks like a large bandage. Underneath, a hair-thin filament sits just below your skin, measuring interstitial glucose levels every few minutes and transmitting the data to your phone. Welcome to the world of continuous glucose monitoring for the non-diabetic.

From Medical Device to Lifestyle Product

Companies like Levels, Nutrisense, and Signos have transformed the CGM from a diabetes management tool into a metabolic awareness platform. Their pitch: by seeing how your body responds to food in real-time, you can optimize your diet for stable energy, better sleep, and long-term metabolic health.

The market is responding. Levels alone has over 500,000 people on its waitlist. Nutrisense has raised $65 million. Abbott, which makes the Libre sensor that powers most of these platforms, is developing consumer-focused products specifically for this market.

The Science: What CGMs Actually Show

Traditional blood glucose tests measure a single point in time—typically fasting. CGMs reveal the full picture: post-meal spikes, overnight dips, the metabolic cost of that 3pm cookie.

For non-diabetics, the revelations can be surprising:

• Foods affect people differently: The same meal can spike one person’s glucose while barely moving another’s. Genetics, gut microbiome, sleep, and stress all play roles.

• Meal timing matters: Eating the same food at different times of day produces different glucose responses. Morning tends to be better than evening for carbohydrate tolerance.

• Exercise is a glucose regulator: Even a 10-minute walk after meals can dramatically reduce glucose spikes.

• Sleep deprivation tanks glucose control: One night of poor sleep can make you temporarily insulin resistant.

The Skeptics’ Case

Not everyone is convinced the wellness market for CGMs makes sense. Critics raise several points:

Clinical relevance is unclear: For people with normal glucose tolerance, the spikes and dips CGMs reveal may be entirely physiological and benign. The body is designed to handle glucose fluctuations.

Anxiety potential: Some users become obsessive about their numbers, leading to disordered eating patterns or unnecessary dietary restriction.

Cost without proven benefit: At $200-400/month, CGM subscriptions are expensive. There’s no evidence yet that using a CGM improves long-term health outcomes in non-diabetics.

“We’re essentially creating a new category of ‘pre-pre-diabetes’ that may not be clinically meaningful,” says Dr. Nicola Guess, a diabetes researcher at the University of Westminster. “Just because we can measure something continuously doesn’t mean we should.”

The User Experience

I wore a Levels CGM for a month. The insights were genuinely interesting:

• My morning oatmeal, which I considered healthy, spiked my glucose to 160 mg/dL
• Adding protein and fat to meals dramatically reduced spikes
• A 15-minute post-meal walk was as effective as changing what I ate
• My glucose control was noticeably worse on nights I slept poorly

Was it worth $300? For the educational experience, arguably yes. As an ongoing subscription? The utility diminishes once you’ve learned your body’s patterns.

What’s Next

The CGM companies are evolving beyond simple glucose monitoring:

Metabolic health scores: Levels and others are developing composite scores that incorporate glucose variability, time in range, and response to meals into single metrics.

Integration with other data: Combining glucose with sleep, HRV, activity, and food logging to provide holistic metabolic insights.

Predictive algorithms: Using machine learning to predict glucose responses before you eat, based on your personal patterns.

The ultimate vision: a world where metabolic health is as visible and manageable as step counts. Whether that’s a healthcare revolution or expensive biohacking theater remains to be seen.