Wearable technology trend now includes healthy people tracking their blood glucose. Is it worth it? | Canada News Media
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Wearable technology trend now includes healthy people tracking their blood glucose. Is it worth it?

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9 months ago

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Technology designed to help people with diabetes manage their blood sugar has joined the wearables trend of watches, bracelets and rings that collect personal health data.

But researchers say the devices might provide minimal benefit to healthy people using them to get minute-by-minute readings on their glucose levels.

Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) are being marketed by manufacturers to non-diabetics, including elite athletes who are wearing them in training with an idea of optimizing how they fuel their body. The devices need to be replaced every two weeks, so cost to use them full-time can run about $3,500 a year.

The devices are toonie-sized disks that typically pierce the skin at the back of the upper arm. A sensor measures glucose �— a sugar from food — in the space around our cells.

Body metrics have become commonplace, with a variety of fitness trackers that measure steps, heart rate and sleep trends. The topic of wearable health technology is regularly featured on Joe Rogan Experience, one of most popular talk shows in the U.S., where some guests promote anti-aging products and advocate a data-driven personalized approach to wellness.

‘Quantifying our lives’

Timothy Caufield, an expert in health law and policy and professor at the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health, calls those types of measurements the “science-y wellness” part of the longevity movement.

“One of the things I find fascinating about this current obsession with quantifying our lives is there is no evidence it is making us any healthier, right?” said Caufield.

A Continuous Glucose Monitor or CGM with sensor and mobile phone displaying a graph of sugar levels. (Pond5)

People with diabetes walk a tightrope to keep their blood sugar levels in the correct range.

CGMs can be lifesaving for people who experience low glucose at night  and risk not waking up in the morning, according to Diabetes Canada.

When blood glucose levels run too low, brain activity slows and people can lose consciousness or have accidents, seizures and even die, said Dr. Peter Senior, director of the Alberta Diabetes Institute.

Conversely, blood sugar levels that are too high can cause wear and tear on the body.

Diabetics use CGM readings to guide their decisions on when to take insulin, eat or change their physical activity level.

Stable sugar level myth

The question is, what’s the benefit of continuous glucose monitoring for everyone else — if, in fact, there is one.

“Many people assume that their blood sugars should be completely stable all the time,” Senior said. “But the reality is that many healthy people, if they eat certain foods, will see a rise in blood sugar, which comes down again.”

Senior said while it’s understood what diabetes looks like, there’s not a lot of data to tell us what normal is.

He also suggested that healthy people could check their glucose levels from time to time instead of continuously.

“Whether or not people need the continuous feedback all of the time if they don’t have diabetes is not clear to me,” he said.

Dietitian Abby Langer said when healthy people obsess about glucose levels, it an create anxiety and fear around eating certain foods unnecessarily. (CBC)

Dietitian Abby Langer of Toronto said people should question the clinical relevance of all these metrics.

“It can create anxiety and fear around eating certain foods where that anxiety and fear is unnecessary,” Langer said.

If the goal of owning a glucose monitor is to stave off diabetes, Langer said there are more direct ways to achieve that.

“I think that if you are eating a balanced diet, a varied diet, if you are moving your body, you are sleeping, you’re finding joy in life, I don’t think you need a glucose monitor.”

 

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The US is mailing Americans COVID tests again. Here’s how to get them

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21 hours ago

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September 26, 2024

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans can once again order COVID-19 tests, without being charged, sent straight to their homes.

The U.S. government reopened the program on Thursday, allowing any household to order up to four at-home COVID nasal swab kits through the website, covidtests.gov. The tests will begin shipping, via the United States Postal Service, as soon as next week.

The website has been reopened on the heels of a summer COVID-19 virus wave and heading into the fall and winter respiratory virus season, with health officials urging Americans to get an updated COVID-19 booster and their yearly flu shot.

“Before you visit with your family and friends this holiday season, take a quick test and help keep them safe from COVID-19,” U.S. Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Dawn O’Connell said in a statement.

U.S. regulators approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine that is designed to combat the recent virus strains and, they hope, forthcoming winter ones, too. Vaccine uptake is waning, however. Most Americans have some immunity from prior infections or vaccinations, but under a quarter of U.S. adults took last fall’s COVID-19 shot.

Using the swab, people can detect current virus strains ahead of the fall and winter respiratory virus season and the holidays. Over-the-counter COVID-19 at-home tests typically cost around $11, as of last year. Insurers are no longer required to cover the cost of the tests.

Before using any existing at-home COVID-19 tests, you should check the expiration date. Many of the tests have been given an extended expiration from the date listed on the box. You can check on the Food and Drug Administration’s website to see if that’s the case for any of your remaining tests at home.

Since COVID-19 first began its spread in 2020, U.S. taxpayers have poured billions of dollars into developing and purchasing COVID-19 tests as well as vaccines. The Biden administration has given out 1.8 billion COVID-19 tests, including half distributed to households by mail. It’s unclear how many tests the government still has on hand.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Free COVID tests are back. Here’s how to order a test to your home

Published

21 hours ago

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September 26, 2024

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans can once again order free COVID-19 tests sent straight to their homes.

The U.S. government reopened the program on Thursday, allowing any household to order up to four at-home COVID nasal swab kits through the website, covidtests.gov. The tests will begin shipping, via the United States Postal Service, as soon as next week.

The website has been reopened on the heels of a summer COVID-19 virus wave and heading into the fall and winter respiratory virus season, with health officials urging Americans to get an updated COVID-19 booster and their yearly flu shot.

U.S. regulators approved an updated COVID-19 vaccine that is designed to combat the recent virus strains and, they hope, forthcoming winter ones, too. Vaccine uptake is waning, however. Most Americans have some immunity from prior infections or vaccinations, but under a quarter of U.S. adults took last fall’s COVID-19 shot.

Using the swab, people can detect current virus strains ahead of the fall and winter respiratory virus season and the holidays. Over-the-counter COVID-19 at-home tests typically cost around $11, as of last year. Insurers are no longer required to cover the cost of the tests.

Since COVID-19 first began its spread in 2020, U.S. taxpayers have poured billions of dollars into developing and purchasing COVID-19 tests as well as vaccines. The Biden administration has given out 1.8 billion COVID-19 tests, including half distributed to households by mail. It’s unclear how many tests the government still has on hand.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Disability rights groups launching Charter challenge against MAID law

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21 hours ago

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September 26, 2024

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TORONTO – A coalition of disability rights groups says it is launching a Charter challenge against a part of Canada’s law on medical assistance in dying.

The group, which also includes two individual plaintiffs, argues that what’s known as track two of the MAID law has resulted in premature deaths.

Under the law, patients whose natural deaths are not reasonably foreseeable but whose condition leads to intolerable suffering can apply for a track-two assisted death.

The coalition says track two of the MAID law has had a direct effect on the lives of people with disabilities and argues medically assisted death should only be available to those whose natural death is reasonably foreseeable.

The executive vice-president of Inclusion Canada – which is part of the coalition – says there has been an alarming trend where people with disabilities are seeking assisted death due to social deprivation, poverty and a lack of essential supports.

Krista Carr says those individuals should instead be supported in order to live better lives.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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