The difference is that these only measure blood sugar, while the new system also measures ketones, of keto diet fame, which are leading indicators of a really dangerous situation called diabetic ketoacidosis. It's treatable with a hospitalized IV insulin drip, but can be avoided if you have some advance notice.

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bsimpson 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My mom had T1D onset in her 50s. (It's usually thought of as a children's disease.)

She figured it out because she recognized the symptoms of ketoacidosis. That sent her to the hospital, which has thankfully allowed her to outlive her pancreas.

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ddorian43 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Diabetic ketoacidosis only happens in T1D, or when you have something extremely wrong going on metabolically (like failing organs, etc).

Normally it should never happen. It happens at ketones like ~10+ mmol, and it's ~impossible to go more than ~6 for a healthy human even eating 100% fat and fasting for a week+ and doing marathons or whatever all at the same time.

The keto diet, can actually help in T1D, by keeping blood sugar more stable overall, but you still need insulin, just less.

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ijustlovemath 5 hours ago | parent [-]

It can happen in people with uncontrolled T2D as well. My cofounder is a pediatric ICU doctor who has treated hundreds of DKA patients.

Also there wasn't really a relationship of the keto diet to the rest of my post, just using it to contextualize a technical term with one that might be more familiar.

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ddorian43 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> It can happen in people with uncontrolled T2D as well. My cofounder is a pediatric ICU doctor who has treated hundreds of DKA patients.

Yes, but you have to work really hard for many years to achieve this!

While on T1D it happens by default if you don't inject insulin.

> while the new system also measures ketones, of keto diet fame, which are leading indicators of a really dangerous situation called diabetic ketoacidosis

It was being said like ketones are bad, because they are known for this scenario, but should be noted that it only happens in these few scenarios, like in uncontrolled diabetes or organ failure or smth.

In most other cases they should be good. But won't happen randomly unless you're explicitly doing keto.

	▲	ijustlovemath 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ah yes, I see what you mean! Ketones are not inherently bad, just the accumulation of them w.r.t having diabetes. Should have made that more clear.