Blood glucose levels affect lots of health functions. Diabetes represents an extreme end of the spectrum where the body's ability to regulate these fluctuations fails, but just because your body can get your levels in control eventually doesn't mean you won't suffer from the negative effects of it needing to do so.

Maintaining consistent glucose levels improves mental health, weight management, sleep quality, muscle recovery, systemic inflammation, cardiovascular health, and may even slow aging. There isn't much clinical data at the moment on how to use blood glucose measurements to control glucose levels outside of people with diabetes (there are lots of things that impact it besides just sugar intake), but there are definitely major theoretical benefits if it can be worked out.

Also, just reducing the incidence of diabetes would be no small accomplishment. About 3.5% of global disability adjusted life-years (DALYs) are due to diabetes. As of 2021 it was the 7th largest contributor of global DALYs.

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agumonkey 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

sample of 1, but yeah changing my diet (very low sugar, more veggies) did alter my health visibly and rapidly. to the point that if I eat something too sweet too fast i have a very mild headache soon after, my system readjusted to not seek levels i grew up with

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maddie0 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

fwiw...

if sugar gives you a headache, this may be related to a gastrointestinal issue (e.g. gluten sensitivity, dietary histamine sensitivity, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth possibly causing its own sensitivities...) The specifics of the cause in your case are between you and your doctor, but i'd like more people to know, especially since these sorts of problems disproportionately affect people with autism and ADHD, long a core Hacker News demographic, and most of us have trouble paying attention to everything our body is feeling in exquisite detail.

other signs of digestive problems in this area may include:

- a pattern of early-afternoon fatigue and brain fog (this is mediated by histamine, which in turn can be caused by a food allergy, a non-allergy food sensitivity, bacteria in the stomach that don't belong there, or the like)

- feeling generally flushed and hot after eating food (more histamine!)

- waking up in the middle of the night, ~4am, especially if you're feeling too hot (also a sign of excess histamine)

- often having an upset stomach, and lots of stomach acid

- increased sensitivity to heat or exercise (mast cell degranulation because your body is already on edge)

- generalized hard-to-place fatigue, brain fog, depression (the whole histamine-response pathway is shot through with various neurotransmitters)

- serious nasal congestion contributing to sleep apnea, and extreme fatigue

now, this is going to be different from person to person, but your doctor's not going to know anything's wrong if you don't tell them!

(and if something like this is the case, it's also the sort of condition that might sometimes has an instant miracle cure, because if you stop releasing the feel-bad neurotransmitters every time you eat, then you suddenly stop feeling terrible!! go figure.)

	▲	yuriks an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> it's also the sort of condition that might sometimes has an instant miracle cure I assume that by this you mean figuring out some kind of dietary restriction? I also struggle with a lot of those things (also ADHD) plus other inflammation-related issues (ezcema), and noticed a very specific pattern of fatigue during the day that improves at night. It's hard to tell what might be effective or not since keeping stability in my routine is a struggle, but I've mostly came up empty on explanations/solutions so far.
	▲	jamiek88 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Woah. I have ADHD and most of these symptoms.

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ddorian43 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What happens is you lose carb tolerance if you don't take them regularly.

I had really high carb tolerance but doing keto for many years has plummeted it and I'm very sensitive now (can still train it). Another example doing keto for many years you also have lower alcohol tolerance.

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loeg 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you think CGM + alerting is a good solution for this compared with just, like, low-dose GLP-1s?

	▲	ijustlovemath an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Recall that GLP-1s were originally designed as next-generation long acting insulin modulators; they're a form of passive control. The CGM gives you data to act on, or at the very least observe. I find, from my experience wearing them as a person without diabetes, they give really interesting insights into my own life by giving numbers to stressful moments, which can be good insight to have. That's called stress induced hyperglycemia. Everyone has a unique and continuously evolving glucose system, so YMMV.

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ButlerianJihad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I am confident that blood glucose has a lot to do with mood regulation as well.

Having been diagnosed with bipolar since 1997, when I began mainlining insulin last year I immediately took notice of how calm and docile I became. I have anger issues and taking insulin turned me into a lamb. I also immediately began sleeping peacefully and restfully, which had been elusive for a decade.

I currently take a calcium channel blocker for hypertension, and Metformin for the glucose, and I monitor with Stelo. But I would give anything for that calming effect of fast-acting insulin.