# How important is glucose flattening?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-glucose-flattening/988660>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [August 16, 2023, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-glucose-flattening/988660 "2023-08-16T15:56:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 81

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**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2023, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-is-glucose-flattening/988660/81 "2023-09-05T14:39:42Z")

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> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> In hindsight I think he should have offered me a glucose tolerance test

It might help with accuracy in the label, but from your doctor’s POV, it likely wouldn’t change much? From their perspective you were already incorporating the lifestyle recommendations that would be advised with a prediabetes label. What does the label add?

_That_ said, it could alter your anxiety level some to be confident that what you are doing is keeping you out of the prediabetes grouping.

_But_ the crux was the anxiety expressed here:

> [@dolphinboy](#):
>
> I could be having daily massive glucose spikes, which are considered unhealthy, and not know it since I can’t feel it when it happens.

So? Were you? How high were you going after meals in baseline? You now have information on what your FBG is before your body starts up the engines knowing there is a 45 minute walk about to happen, what your max peaks are, and how much time you on average spend where. Of course what normal values are is not well determined but that is much more than both FBG and HgbA1c together!

FWIW there were the two related threads below that of some interest to this discussion. The first cued to were discussion of CGM began.

> [@Stubborn A1C numbers and what to do](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stubborn-a1c-numbers-and-what-to-do/980608/25):
>
> I would not recommend a type 2 diabetic with an A1c of 8.0 who is on metformin only to get a CGM. CGMs are most useful when one does something immediate based on the glucose level, like taking a certain amount of insulin. CGM is most beneficial for those who are absolutely insulin dependent.

> [@Has constant data hyper charged the worried well?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-constant-data-hyper-charged-the-worried-well/980726):
>
> From socks that monitor normal babies’ heart rates and oxygen level constantly in their sleep wearables that report and grade on sleep to movement to heart rate variability to who knows … the is an abundance of data now available to anyone with a few hundred bucks to spend. And it is not a hard sell to many. And I am sure that it can be helpful to some. But how often is this data noise that obscures more than signal or even information that misdirects more than helpful?

For those who are not diabetic I worry about a pursuit of best flatness misdirecting on healthy behaviors and increasing rather than decreasing anxiety.

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