Sự thật gây sốc khi theo dõi đường huyết của tôi trong một tháng: Bong bóng sức khỏe của tôi vỡ tan

Sự thật gây sốc khi theo dõi đường huyết của tôi trong một tháng: Bong bóng sức khỏe của tôi vỡ tan

Tôi luôn cố gắng duy trì một lối sống lành mạnh. Chế độ ăn của tôi chủ yếu là ăn chay, tôi ưu tiên vận động hàng ngày và cố gắng dành thời gian tiếp xúc với ánh nắng mặt trời. Tôi cũng thực hiện xét nghiệm máu định kỳ hàng năm để kiểm tra các chỉ số như cholesterol, mức vitamin, sức khỏe tuyến giáp và glucose. Điều này xuất phát từ nhận thức của tôi về vấn đề bệnh mãn tính tại Mỹ, bao gồm cả bệnh tiểu đường loại 2 và tiền tiểu đường, những căn bệnh ảnh hưởng đến hàng triệu người trưởng thành và hoàn toàn có thể phòng ngừa được.

Tuy nhiên, mọi thứ đã thay đổi khi tôi quyết định theo dõi đường huyết của mình trong suốt một tháng. Điều tưởng chừng như đơn giản lại mang đến những kết quả khiến tôi không khỏi bất ngờ và lo lắng. Tôi luôn nghĩ rằng mình đang sống một cách lành mạnh, nhưng dữ liệu từ việc theo dõi đường huyết đã khiến tôi phải nhìn nhận lại mọi thứ.

Trong tháng đó, tôi sử dụng một thiết bị theo dõi đường huyết liên tục (CGM) để đo mức glucose trong máu của mình. Kết quả cho thấy, ngay cả những bữa ăn mà tôi cho là lành mạnh cũng có thể khiến đường huyết của tôi tăng đột biến. Ví dụ, một bữa sáng với bánh mì nguyên cám và trái cây tưởng chừng tốt cho sức khỏe lại khiến mức đường huyết của tôi tăng cao hơn mức bình thường. Điều này khiến tôi nhận ra rằng, không phải cứ ăn uống “lành mạnh” là đã đủ, mà cần phải hiểu rõ cách cơ thể phản ứng với từng loại thực phẩm.

Ngoài ra, tôi cũng nhận thấy rằng căng thẳng và thiếu ngủ có ảnh hưởng đáng kể đến mức đường huyết của mình. Những ngày tôi làm việc căng thẳng hoặc ngủ không đủ giấc, đường huyết của tôi thường dao động nhiều hơn. Điều này cho thấy, sức khỏe tổng thể không chỉ phụ thuộc vào chế độ ăn uống mà còn liên quan mật thiết đến lối sống và tinh thần.

Kết quả từ việc theo dõi đường huyết đã khiến tôi phải thay đổi nhiều thói quen. Tôi bắt đầu chú ý hơn đến việc kết hợp các loại thực phẩm để tránh tăng đường huyết đột ngột, đồng thời tăng cường quản lý căng thẳng và ưu tiên giấc ngủ. Tôi cũng nhận ra rằng, việc theo dõi sức khỏe một cách chủ động và thường xuyên là vô cùng quan trọng để phòng ngừa các vấn đề sức khỏe tiềm ẩn.

Trải nghiệm này đã thay đổi hoàn toàn cách nhìn của tôi về sức khỏe. Tôi nhận ra rằng, dù đã cố gắng sống lành mạnh, nhưng nếu không hiểu rõ cách cơ thể hoạt động, chúng ta vẫn có thể gặp phải những rủi ro không ngờ. Việc theo dõi đường huyết không chỉ giúp tôi hiểu hơn về cơ thể mình mà còn là một lời nhắc nhở về tầm quan trọng của việc chăm sóc sức khỏe một cách toàn diện.

#SứcKhỏe #ĐườngHuyết #TiểuĐường #LốiSốngLànhMạnh #TheoDõiSứcKhỏe #PhòngNgừaBệnhTật #ChămSócBảnThân

I try to stay healthy. I eat a (mostly) vegetarian diet, prioritize daily movement and try to make time for sunshine. I also get annual blood work done that measures things like cholesterol, vitamin levels, thyroid health and glucose. That’s because I’m generally aware of the US problem with chronic diseases, including Type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, which affect millions of adults and can be prevented. 

I note all of this to set the stage for how arrogant I was before I started testing a Stelo continuous glucose monitor, the first available without prescription in the US. Previously, CGMs have only been available as medical devices for people who use insulin and are required to track their blood sugar for medical purposes, along with a small number of wellness biohackers who’ve paid top dollar to get a CGM prescription off-label so they can better see how their body uses energy (food). 

Given glucose, or blood sugar, may be the last basic health metric we can’t track with a conventional smartwatch, I didn’t think twice before stamping the quarter-sized biosensor to my upper arm and wading into deeper wellness waters, expecting the assurance from past bloodwork and the fact that I read about health stuff all day to shield me from the likelihood of anything scary popping up in this new wellness terrain. Plus, my Oura ring says my cardiovascular age is several years younger than my real age. 

In other words, I got cocky.

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There’s a good bagel shop down the street from where I live in Brooklyn. One Saturday after a Pilates workout, I ordered a veggie omelet on a salt bagel with a beet, carrot and ginger juice. 

In other words, it was a carb-heavy meal. And while it was delicious, I knew Big Daddy Blood Sugar was going to have something to say about it. And oh, did it. This remains my biggest glucose spike since I began tracking my blood sugar, and it was quite shocking to see how high it got, even though it fell back down fast. 

This one wasn’t surprising — I know bagels have a lot of carbs, and while the juice was freshly blended and full of vitamins, it was processed juice and a lot of natural sugar. But it was around this point that I started to get genuinely concerned that I may be one of the 1 in 3 US adults who have prediabetes but don’t yet know it. 

The Stelo starts to mellow out 

A couple weeks into testing the Stelo, my glucose charts started becoming a little less spikey and my average glucose level is trending down. I’m able to do this in the glucose summary in the Stelo app, as well as a more comprehensive view in Dexcom Clarity, an app people can use to share their glucose information with a health care provider. My glucose levels have also been lower in the mornings when I wake up, suggesting a slightly lower fasting glucose level (or morning glucose level). 

I think a few factors contributed to this. One is that I’ve been trying to add more protein to more snacks and meals, especially as the first food choice of the day when I tend to not be very hungry. Protein does not have the same glucose-spiking effect as carbs. I’ve also been trying to sit around less after eating, as walking or moving following a meal is a fast way to lower glucose. 

But I haven’t been trying that hard to lower my glucose levels as I wanted to get a more accurate snapshot based on what my norm is. This leads me to other potential influences that are more speculative. One is that I think I was getting over some type of virus when I first started wearing the monitor. I felt fatigued enough to test for COVID a couple of times (negative), but my tiredness persisted for several days after a quick sore throat, suggesting my body was fighting something and (potentially) raising my glucose levels. At first, I didn’t think much of this because the information I’d seen suggested that more severe illnesses raised blood sugar, not minor bouts of fatigue.

The other factor that may have lowered my fasting glucose level is that I was a bit less stressed and may’ve been getting more restful sleep. For a big chunk of my Stelo review, I was spending time with family in Wisconsin. During this time, I actually expected my blood sugar levels to spike a bit more than normal considering I was eating desserts more often than I usually do and also exercising a bit less. But coming out of a stressful couple of weeks in New York City full of travel and poor sleep, could working in the peace and quiet and spending time with family improved my stress levels in ways that may have inadvertently lowered my blood sugar?

A1C vs. CGM: Is one more accurate than the other? 

One of the benefits to wearing a CGM, according to Isaacs, is that it may be more telling than an A1C test drawn in a doctor’s office. An A1C is an average of your blood glucose levels over the last three months. It’s used for diagnosing diabetes and prediabetes, but it may be affected by small variabilities or abnormalities in red blood cells. 

And it can’t track blood sugar in real time like wearing a CGM can, so people who have significant lows and significant highs may have a misleading A1C because it’s just averaging out, according to Isaacs. 

“The CGM helps you figure out sort of more precisely what’s going on compared to the A1C,” Isaacs explained, specifically through a metric called a GMI. I could see mine once I downloaded Dexcom Clarity, which was easy to do and something I recommend because it filled out some of the long-term data missing from the Stelo app. 

But learning this was concerning to me, as I was leaning on my last couple of years’ worth of A1C numbers to feel confident I was firmly below a cut-off that would suggest diabetes, prediabetes or insulin resistance. But my GMI estimate from Dexcom is definitely higher than my past two A1Cs. (My GMI has decreased a bit over time since I started using the sensor, as my average glucose levels have been lower, but still.) 

I have nothing to do with this information now other than speculatively sift through other blood work findings. I did find out I had a vitamin B12 deficiency in 2023 — could this affect my blood results or be a factor? I have zero idea. But I absolutely plan to bring it up at my next doctor appointment.

What are the benefits and risks of tracking your blood sugar?

Continuous glucose monitoring gives people direct insight into their blood sugar levels, which can indicate diabetes, a preventable disease that can lead to nerve damage, vision problems, heart problems and more. 

Without glucose monitoring, detection of diabetes relies on people getting regular blood work or having diabetes progress enough to where people actually develop symptoms. These can include increased thirst and tingling in the hands and feet.

In addition to being a real-time alternative to traditional bloodwork, Isaacs says glucose monitoring is beneficial for people who want more information about how their diet and other lifestyle factors affect blood glucose. So long as they understand the limitations of wearing a CGM, which includes not overreacting to what could be “possibly normal.” (Guilty.)

“On the other hand, I’m sure there are people that have diabetes that don’t know it, and they put out a sensor and it shows their diabetes,” Isaacs said. “It can go both ways,” he said, but CGMs do tend to motivate people to take health into their own hands.

From a public health standpoint, more people wearing glucose monitors will encourage more research and help inform what it means to be “metabolically healthy” — a goal post I still don’t feel confident is sturdy enough at the end of writing this review.

What tracking my blood sugar with the Stelo taught me 

I learned there are still a lot of questions we don’t have answers for when tracking glucose in the general population. For example, how meaningful are the differences in terms of long-term health or overall wellness between people with varying glucose levels or spikes? Health guidance around blood sugar seems to revolve around “disease” vs. “no disease.” 

On the other hand, will glucoses monitoring monitoring give people a false sense of health security? What if their blood sugar stays low, but their diet is generally lacking in nutrients that tend to lead to positive long-term health outcomes? 

On a personal level, and despite my early frustrations with the ups and downs, I did learn a lot from a month spent tracking my glucose. (I did miss a few days when switching sensors.) Mostly, I learned that making very small changes like prioritizing eating just a little bit more protein each day, and taking a short little walk after a meal does seem to keep my glucose from rising high. 

Importantly, none of these changes required me to take on habits I find unsustainable or even harmful in the long run — such as calorie counting, applying moral values to food as “bad” in order to restrict them or over-exercising. 

It also highlighted unhealthy habits of mine I’ve been sweeping under the rug. For example, I am a chronically poor sleeper who will stay up very late or get up very early in the name of getting things done, usually more creative or fun things I don’t have time for in the regular weekday. But because my poor sleep hygiene hasn’t been affecting my health in obvious ways, and I feel rested enough most days, I’ve been treating it more as the ghost of Christmas future that will only haunt a future version of myself. And by then, I’ll have a healthier sleep pattern, right? This is even with the knowledge that research has directly pointed to short sleeping as a potential cause of insulin resistance in women. 

On a follow-up question about stress, Isaacs told me that stress can make blood sugar higher, but there are factors that affect how much. He added that the impact is more pronounced in people with diabetes. Whether or not my poor sleep and perceived high stress in my Stelo testing was a real reason for the subtle positive glucose shift from start to finish, I’ve decided it doesn’t matter much. Because if there are two patterns that do seem to solidify time and time again in the wellness world, it’s that healthy habits inspire other ones, and that you feel a greater sense of well-being when you have agency and choice over them.
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