My father used to say that if you have to ask whether an effect is statistically significant (that is, it’s not blindingly obvious that it is so) then it’s not clinically significant.
I can say that for my personal experiment (n = 1) the main effect of metformin on exercise is to increase the duration and severity of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. With the consequence of less motivation to exercise even less often.
More creaking and groaning doesn’t get me racing back into the gym like it used to.
That sounds significant. I haven’t noticed that, but haven’t looked for it, either.
OTH, this experiment has been running for enough years that I can’t disentangle the effects of aging from the cumulative effects of the meds.
The Stelo arrived. Kind of a neat system. The applicator somehow reminds me of various devices in sci-fi and video games. Hold this thing with a freaky needle to your body, press the button, and ka-chunk, it’s applied.
So far it’s kinda slowly varying between 94 and 104. A coffee with cream and sugar had no effect. I think I’ll try an extra-large meal tonight to see what happens.
The shelf life is more than a year out, so I’ll save the other unit for the next time I do a self-checkup.
If you exercise, be aware that your cells will release glucose into your blood stream and may cause spikes. This is normal.
This only applies to type 1s who inject insulin. For other people, including type 2s who do not inject insulin, your liver will dump glycogen into your bloodstream and you will not die. BGs in the 70s and 80s for those who do not take insulin are not life-threatening.
Ah. Thanks.
(Although the OP never says Type 2, I figured it out about post 30, and I realized my mistake.)
A little searching and not absolutely true. Case reports like this one where ketogenic diet and some alcohol combined to get someone down to 39.
And apparently a real risk for intermittent fasting among T2 diabetics treated with hypoglycemic agents:
Let us know how the overnight goes!
maybe, and maybe way too simplistic. (especially if one is Not Young)
An MD I know who is in her 70s and has been eating very, very healthy, and getting tons of exercise for decades recently got a CGM for a 2 week period and she learned something big:
while her A1C is always good, the affect sugar/simple carbs has on her glucose level really differs by time of day. From very little affect during the day to making for a huge spike in the evening.
She believes it is her age, but the point is while it might be OK to “have sweets in moderation” (for example) that might not mean in the evening, or the older you get, etc.
ETA: good thread and I will also be interested to see what else you learn, Stranger
It may actually be in support of the point.
So the 70s old woman’s glucose level goes up with sweets in the evening and comes right back down. Not enough (degree, frequency, duration …) to raise her hgbA1c even into “prediabetic” level.
And?
Unrecognized and let to continue to happen with whatever frequency she has a dessert with dinner, what harm do we have any evidence would occur? What benefit to her healthspan will changing this aspect of her lifestyle result in?
To me this seems more as pathologizing normal than anything else.
doesn’t “go up” - has a HUGE spike. And didn’t necessarily go “right back down”.
It is notable because she has lived an extremely healthy lifestyle but as she ages she has tuned in more to trends in lab numbers than in just calling “normal” good and moving on. She learned from using the CGM that her metabolism is not as bulletproof as it was when she was young.
and since she is an MD my guess is she has a better grasp of what is not good for her than you do.
And I’ll stand by my position and my question: a “huge spike” at 70 whatever, that is not associated with elevation of hgbA1c, is meaningful, why? What harm is it causing exactly?
Does she have pre prediabetes?
Just to be clear, as far I know I don’t have any form of diabetes or pre-diabetes. This thread arose purely because a blood report showed a marginal “out of range” value for glucose and I wanted to satisfy my curiosity. I’m at this point satisfied that it’s nothing to worry about, but I do still have some questions.
There are some interesting results, but I want to graph the data first and that’ll have to wait until tonight. The last 24 hours were fairly unusual meal-wise and I wonder if that actually sheds light on what’s going on. Anyway, hopefully by this evening I’ll have some pretty graphs and some relevant questions.
Looking forward to it!
Meanwhile relevant to the current discussion about the wider use of CGMs by those without diabetes or even prediabetes and what the data obtained means … is this past thread:
It is a fun reread I think.
Still the case that we don’t really have a good set of how daily glucose curves are distributed across the population, what “normal” is, let alone how the curve shapes, peaks and valley heights and depths, correlate with outcomes longer term, and then if whatever the correlations may be are causative or each caused by some other factor, like dysfunctional inflammation or excessive unremitting stress. Or other. Or if interventions that result in flatter curves lower any future risks.
I said it in that thread and I will repeat here: it may turn out at some future date that CGMs will give meaningful actionable information for those without diabetes. But the data to do that has not been collected or analyzed yet.
I learned a couple of interesting things and one actionable thing from wearing a cgm for a while. I learned:
- Sleep matters
- Stress matters
- Just walking around doesn’t matter, i need to walk briskly
The only one if those that is actionable is #3. But the others are interesting. It’s interesting to understand how your body works.
All right, here is the chart as it stands:
The unusual circumstances that I mentioned:
- Due to some work-related stuff, I didn’t get to eat until 11pm on Thurs. I then had about 2200 cal at In-n-Out.
- Also due to work, I woke a bit earlier than usual (10a) and also ate lunch there–which happened to have a crapload of white rice. I don’t particularly avoid white rice, but I don’t generally have a big pile of it like today.
Normally, I’d have a more modest dinner at 7pm. To some extent I also wanted to “stress test” things.
Some thoughts:
- Readings are ~100 in early afternoon Thurs.
- There’s a little afternoon lull at 5pm. Maybe not surprising?
- At 9:30 there’s a significant drop! I don’t think the Stelo is actually rated for readings <70, but it shows up in the raw data. No physical effects from the fairly low readings.
- The giant meal at In-n-Out certainly perked things up, but even at the peak stayed <140. And aside from some noise, dropped off reasonably. Lots of fat+protein in the meal.
- Overnight I more or less stayed in the 70-100 range. Seems ok.
- I definitely get a waking boost! Not sure what’s cause and effect exactly, but it seemed to start between when I briefly woke (like 30 seconds to look at my clock) and fully woke. And then it went up from there, even going >110 before I’d eaten.
- The giant carb plate did have a significant effect! Doesn’t seem like a giant disaster since it still stayed <170 and didn’t spike for very long at that. And I wonder if the higher baseline had an effect. Regardless, something to keep in mind. My general preference for fat+protein over carbs is probably a good thing overall.
Anyway, my overall impression is that my body is anticipating my usual schedule. There’s a late evening slump when I would ordinarily be digesting a meal. Since I didn’t get one, it drives the BG extra low. When I’m about to wake, the BG is driven up a bit for alertness. Thus explaining the slightly high results from the previous blood tests. And then, finally, I get a somewhat high BG spike by eating a meal when my body isn’t expecting it. It recovers fairly quickly but it’s still unusual.
I’ll eat on a more normal schedule the next few days to see what happens. Hopefully some less wild swings than the results so far.
It seems I’ve been wrong about this for years. A Double-Double with onion is 610 cal. Fries are 360 cal. 2x Double-Double and fries are thus under 1600 cal. Ketchup probably adds 50 cal. Huh.
Added some improvements to the graph. The data is a bit noisy so I added some smoothing. There are also some percentile lines which happen to almost be on the 70-140 boundaries.
I remain very aware of how little any of us know about what these curves “should” or even typically look like, aware of how ignorant any of us are about what shapes either cause or are markers of other issues, now or later.
But I admit, it’s still fun to look at!
Your sample so far does suggest that your body anticipates your normal schedule, but responds pretty quickly to alterations. As the mantra goes: more study is needed! 