GoKawiilDaily life is different when you’re tracking glucose. A little over a year ago, I was on my way to a conference. My bags were packed, the Uber was on its way, but there was one last thing to do before I could head to the airport. Tearing open a small isopropyl alcohol wipe, I cleaned the skin on the back of my arm. After that, I applied a small applicator to the clean skin, doing my best to ignore the visible needle inside. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed a button. It made a ka-thunk. I repeated the process on the other arm.
In my right arm, I now had a Dexcom Stelo. In the left, an Abbott Lingo. Both were over-the-counter continuous glucose monitors (CGM) that would monitor the rise and fall of my glucose levels. Opening my phone, I checked both the Dexcom and Abbott apps to make sure the CGMs were transmitting data. I made a mental note to check how high altitudes might impact readings. It crossed my mind that, to my surprise, I’d felt zero pain.
There was no urgent medical reason why I needed to track my glucose. I’m not a diabetic. My A1C levels — the metric that measures long-term blood sugar — have always been good. But glucose tracking isn’t just for diabetics anymore. On social media, you can see doctors, wellness influencers, biohackers, and athletes talking about CGM use. I just happen to test health tech, so I thought I’d give it a whirl for a few weeks and see if there was any benefit for a non-diabetic like myself using this tech.
Instead, I ended up spending over a year testing the devices, reading up on studies, speaking with researchers, and falling down rabbit holes. I bounced from doctor to doctor trying to figure out if there was actually something wrong with me — or the devices I was using.
Applying CGMs has become second nature over the past year. They don’t hurt, but I am hyper aware of the types of sleeves I wear while testing.
The first “professional use” CGM was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in 1999. Most people think these devices are used to track blood sugar, but that’s not entirely correct. Technically, they provide real-time glucose measurements from the interstitial fluid between your cells, just underneath your skin. Compared to traditional finger-stick tests, which directly measure blood sugar, CGMs can track glucose trends over an extended period of time.
Until 2024, CGMs required a prescription and were devices primarily used by Type 1 diabetics — people who produce little to no insulin. Now, both Dexcom and Abbott sell CGMs targeted at non-diabetics, prediabetics, and Type 2 diabetics who don’t rely on insulin. To differentiate, sometimes you’ll see companies market over-the-counter devices as “glucose biosensors.”
The benefits of using CGMs for prediabetics and Type 2 diabetics are clear. Unlike Type 1 diabetes, prediabetes and Type 2 tend to develop over time as the body becomes more resistant to insulin. If caught early enough, it can be “reversed” with lifestyle interventions like changes to diet and exercise. People with pre- and Type 2 diabetes also make up the overwhelming majority of cases in the US. According to the American Diabetes Association, as of 2021, Type 2 diabetics make up about 95 percent — or roughly 36 million — of the estimated 38.4 million Americans with diabetes. Meanwhile, about 98 million were estimated to have prediabetes. Put all that together, and a significant number of people could potentially learn a lot from using CGMs about how their dietary habits impact a legitimate metabolic condition.
Less clear is whether this technology is useful for non-diabetics. But that hasn’t stopped the push for this tech, from both the CGM makers and the government. If Health Secretary RFK Jr. has his way, in four years, everyone might be wearing one of these. Underscoring this, President Donald Trump’s controversial surgeon general nominee Casey Means is also the cofounder of Levels, a CGM startup aimed at non-diabetics. In her book Good Energy, she calls out the technology as a useful tool in fixing metabolic dysfunction — something she claims is at the root of every possible chronic ailment today. However, several medical experts have publicly questioned this logic, stating the evidence for non-diabetics simply isn’t there.
But we’ve now entered a new era where wearable technology offers a tantalizing promise. It’s not just about flagging potential illnesses. It’s about optimizing your body’s biometric data to live the longest, healthiest life possible. In the context of the US’s terribly flawed healthcare system, this tech has often been positioned as giving back a degree of control to the average person. Wear this device, track your health, learn more about yourself, and subsequently make better choices.
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