It’s more the other way around - i.e. having the ability to see the effect of what you are eating on your glucose levels - having this information has kept me accountable, i.e. I would now think twice about munching my way through a pack of Jaffa Cakes because I know I would see my glucose level go through the roof. I have always struggled with my diet, I’m a fussy eater with a massive sweet tooth. I haven’t suddenly gone all out keto, but I’m more aware than ever of what carb intake does to me. Experiementation is the name of the game (with yourself as the subject) - but you do have to invest some time in educating yourself on metabolism (at least I did and continue to do so) - as I said the awareness helped me drop 6kgs and I am totally convinced that this saved me from pre-diabetes and onward to Type 2. Having said all that - the target market for Supersapiens is performance and fuelling for athletes - I have just found I have got other vaue from it. Hope that helps.
So how would this help a non-diabetic healthy person to train better and get faster?
Sure it might be an interesting science experiment. Maybe I’d avoid grapes or one particular food if it spiked my sugar level a lot. But I don’t need a CGM to tell me that eating cake or pancakes will spike my blood sugar.
So how would this help a non-diabetic healthy person to train better and get faster?
By better understanding their fuelling needs and strategy and being able to see the effect different foods have on their levels, pre, during and post event. https://blog.supersapiens.com/
BUT, I agree this is an emerging space for the use of CGM for a non-diabetic healthly person. There are other players in the market, and I have found these articles interesting.
But nobody is forcing anyone to use them, they won’t be for everyone and beauty is in the eye of the beholder! 
First question would be what are your current weaknesses and what are your current limiters. Then from there you can see whether a cgm is appropriate for you.
I see the cgm as a pretty useful tool, not unlike something on the scale of how a power meter and HR monitor is a useful tool. Sure you can train by RPE, but these tools can be more precise and get you to your goal sooner. Of course, it’s not magic and if your limiter is that you don’t train consistently, then you are your own limiter. This tool does reveal a lot of info that’s personalized because not everyone reacts to certain foods in the same way glycemically. There is person to person variation and male to female variation(menstrual cycle). Then there’s age. How old are you? How glucose tolerant are you? Many people begin to slide closer towards pre diabetes in their latter years regardless of behavior. Genetics and time play a role.
The biggest improvement I can see being made is improving diet, especially through timing and appropriate foods for the activity. Then the other part is eating while biking. Making sure you are taking onboard enough fuel for your workouts and making recovery better by not digging too deep in fuel reserves every hard day.
TLDR: can improve weight, can improve power if you are already consistent in training and have an imperfect diet
Bit harsh to suggest I’m lacking in common sense - but hey ho…
The version of the Abbott Libre Biosensor they use streams the data via Bluetooth, so no need to scan unless you’ve been away from your phone. Through the Garmin integration it will display the value (mg/Dl) as a data field on devices that support them with Connect IQ - so Edge devices as listed above. NOTE: you still need your phone to bridge the connection. They are going to introduce a wrist worn reader that would aleviate the need to bridge with your phone.
I’m no expert and I’ve actually found that having to educate myself on this a fascinating journey of discovery…did I need a device/gadget as a catalyst for that - in my case yes!
The sensor takes it’s reading from interstitial fluid (there is a small filament that gets inserted into your skin when you apply the sensor - it’s painless!) - so this isn’t directly measuring your blood and there is an inherent delay (common wisdom suggests 10/15 minutes). The app gives you a trend arrow to help you see where your levels are heading, so if you see they are looking like they are dropping then maybe time to consider some fuelling.
?? I thought the pathology of type 2 diabetes would is commonly known.
So age, genetics, ethnicity and race are what we call irreversible risk factors. Things you cannot change…
If you want a real deep dive, then I recommend this course.
In it, you will find the importance of integrins, how gastric bypass surgery can be curative for type 2 independent of weight loss amongst other biochemical pathways involved in the pathology of type 2 diabetes. It is far from a “it’s all because of lack of exercise and poor diet” disease. It’s complex and interrelated to those irreversible risk factors I mentioned.
Ah yes, time is probably the biggest factor of all! It’s clear that it is something you develop over time. Like wrinkles. Your skin will wrinkle over time and whether you are in the sun or moisturize affects when you get it. So same thing with glucose tolerance. Over time, many people are less able to maintain glucose homeostasis because the cellular machinery probably ages. This is evident in epidemiological studies of age vs glucose tolerance tests in relation to BMI.
Anecdotally you have people like Beth Stern show up as prediabetic even though from her phenotype, she is waif thin.
Inability to maintain glucose homeostasis or homeostasis in general is highly correlated with time aka aging and is exacerbated by diet.
Interestingly my elder brother has always been thin (and was fit in his younger days in the Army). Last year he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes (basically because he was thirsty all the time!) - they tested his urine and he was basically peeing glucose as his body couldn’t control the levels. Unfortunately he progressed to Type 1. My eldest daughter has been diagnosed with PCOS and was Insulin resistant. The whole area is a complex one and glucose levels are driven by all sorts of factors.
Type 2 doesn’t progress to Type 1 per-se. They’re really completely different diseases that present with the same symptom of elevated blood glucose. If I had to guess, your elder brother was misdiagnosed T2 initially and turned out to be a T1.5 (LADA) upon further (more competent) inspection. Wait till you hear about Type 3 diabetes (alzheimers). 
The point is that you save time. How long would it take you to fine tune your on the bike nutrition to hash out all the kinks? You can definitely tighten that trial and error loop. It’s all about saving time and effort.
I would agree that it’s not as useful to be used in real time because it’s reading from interstitial but it’s also much quicker than if you were measuring not during activity.
If money was no problem, you can just get the latest version of a dexcom and you can see it in real time. Probably not necessary for most but in our type 1 population it’s essential.
i posted above and repost it here. As a type1 diabetic I am using a Dexcom CGM for years. there is a considerable delay of mostly 20min or more in comparision to directly measuring your blood sugar with conventional fingertip-blood-measurements.
and even then the CGM can be up to 20% off when it deals with more extreme blood sugar levels, low or high!
So if really somebody non-diabetic feels that this data is somehow relevant Id suggest to briefly stopp the training, take a precise blood sugar measurement through your fingertipp and continue the workout. It is precise, quick and cheap(er).
I do not rely on the CGM data exclusively, it is way off especially after food and during intense workouts. It gives me the great advantage and lifesaver that the alarm wakes me up at night before something worse happens… but during the day and especially during sports it is not reliable enough for my health nor would it be precise enough for valuable analysis of data during workouts.
So I still carry a conventional blood measurement device additionally with me and rely on the real blood test to give me data for adjusting my insuline injections
That’s unfortunate to hear that. We got two athletic type 1’s here that used the dexcom G6 where the readings were pretty much spot on with fingersticks and there is no delay. The biggest problem would be from the initial placement. Our biggest concern in delay isn’t between fingerstick and cgm as they are both insterstitial measurements and correlate very well in real time. The delay we see is between interstitial and venous blood. During activity, the delay is even tighter, giving even better control.
The sensor is usually placed on the fat belly of the abdominal area and the insulin pump is placed on the upper deltoid.
His glucose control is spot on and generally achieve anywhere in the 4.0 to 4.5 HgbA1c and her control is more difficult because menstrual cycle so we see her in the 5.2 to 5.5 range.
Almost all the insulin doses are based solely on the data from the cgm without the need of the fingerstick.
very nice to hear it works for some. Interesting though as even Dexcom clearly states that there is delay and no application of insuline should be undertaken solely on basis of the Dexcoms data. But hey, happy to hear it seems still to work for some.
as I said, in my years of using Dexcom there has always been delay, there has always been considerable difference between Dexcom and fingerstick test after food intake or during workouts and, especially during high intense workouts where blood sugar tends to fall very quickly many times the Dexcom reacted with a sensor fault which could last up to 30 min until the signal was fine again and data was sent.
So for me the Dexcom has not been and is not fully reliable as exclusive source for blood levels as much as I would wish it would be. It is not.
my sensor is applied on the belly, always has been, my HbA1c is usually around 5,5%.
For a Type1 I find 4.0 very low.
Asuming regular intense workouts where blood sugar needs to be in higher ranges and even tends to spike considerably after completing sessions someone who wants to reach a HbA1c of below 5% has to have very very low blood sugar outside of workouts. Such person must be undersugared in Hypo all the time.
It is a young, very active male who has a very good intuitive sense about his insulin doses. Better than what could be administered algorithmically. Also, both individuals are on low carb, ketogenic diets that is the bedrock of maintaining glucose homeostasis.
Are we talking about the same version of dexcom? Here in the US, we are using the g6 which is FDA approved for insulin decisions without finger sticks. You do want to do finger sticks periodically to verify calibration though. The new G7 that’s coming out should be even better. We have other systems which are closed loop with the pump which, of course doesn’t need finger sticks as it is the closed loop, however, the adaptive learning software still isn’t as good as a highly competent human.
Sure, I have a G6.
and still I find these HbA1c very low, too low.
Ahhh, yea I know what you mean. I’m not one to rule out that he may be a genetic freak though. In any case, that is outside my realm of expertise. That’s between him, his endocrinologist and…psychologist…lol
Ah right, was wondering why it was not showing up on my Garmin. Which beta are you using? I see 7.19 is out.