GCM installed: trial period

[mccoy]

This is the statistical summary of daily fluctuations of BG in the 11-days period so far experimented. We can see the median value of 50% , the 25th to 75th percentile and the 5th to 95th percentile bands. The 25-75% band exhibits little spikes and the maxima are located after breakfast at 9:00, some time after lunch from 3 to 4 PM   and there is no significant hump after dinner, when the meal is low-carb. The graph is coherent with my eating patterns and carbs intake

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by mccoy

[mccoy]

a brief but useful statistical report, with an average BG concentration of 105 mg/dL and a coefficient of variation COV = 12%, pretty good, sign of a modest variability. COV is standard deviation/average BG.

[mccoy]

This is yesterday's BG signal. The first peak at 10: AM is after breakfast of one kiwifruit eaten after greek yogurt. Kiwifruit has about 10 grams of mixed sugars, greek yogurt has mainly lactose, about 15 grams in total. The meal was ingested after moderate aerobic exercise. My conclusion is that kiwifruit after dairy doesn't peak significantly. Deans said it was maybe due to the insulinogenic effect of dairy products. I retorted that greek yogurt doesn't not contain a significant whey fraction rather more of a casein fraction, less insulinogenic. Hard to know the truth, probably many factors contributed to the low peak and subsequent small trough.

The second peak is after lunch where I tried a dish of potatoes, sprinkled with abundant apple cider vinegar and left in the fridge. They did not yield a peak of hi-intensity, rather a mound whose presence has lingered for hours. I don't see much advantage in it, I expected the benefit of vinegar to be better.

At dinner, no peaks but some undulations. The meal was lowcarb, salad and tofu with little peppers, with only possible source of carbs a protein bar with polyalcohols, which may contribute to the glucose signal, as I experienced in a previous occasion. After dinner I had a 45m minutes walk, which presumably contributed to the trough at 10 PM hour. Then glucose, for some reasons, raised again, I think maybe because of cortisol in the blood, since it lingered during the first part of the successive day, with no other apparent reasons. Maybe the bench press workout I had before dinner, not a particularly intense one though, strange that it elevated cortisol for such a long time, but possible.

 

Edited July 12, 2021 by mccoy

[mccoy]

I completed the 14-days monitoring period after which the sensor ceases to function.

On the last 3-4 days, the sensor baseline drifted upward, after checks with a strip glucometer, the Accucheck Aviva which has a reported MARD of 7%. The drift tended to be consistent, and was of about +20 mg/dL. I didn't check the peaks, which have been consistent though with the ingestion of foods and their content of carbs or with the instances physical exercise done.

These are the signals of every single day. After I finished my stock of kiwifruit, on day 11th, there have been no more pronounced spikes. No fruit, no honey, no cereals but on day 5, max 50 grams of legumes.

This is the whole period range, whose median should be adjusted downward after the first 10 days.

Edited July 17, 2021 by mccoy

[Dean Pomerleau]

So mccoy, what changes to your diet and/or lifestyle are you carrying forward as a result of your glucose monitoring experiment? Are you really going high fat / keto and completely cutting out fruit? 

--Dean 

[mccoy]

It is interesting during this day to notice the dampening effect, very similar to that of an engineering damping system, of the insuline-glucagon interaction.

I ate a substantial amount of nonfat greek yogurt mixed with a lowcarb dessert, with lactase added, which resulted in more readily available galactose and glucose. So it was in total about 8 grams of lactose plus 10 grams of the galactose-glucose mix, no fats. This triggered the insulin response which resulted in the relatively small peak at about 8:00 hours. The insulin dampened the glucose concentration, but then the glucagon sensor in the alpha cells read a lowish values and caused an upward rebound, with subsequent oscillations of lower intensity until the value settles around the homeostatic baseline (if the conditions in the system remain stable).

Of course, the reality is much more complex, I remain impressed though by the analogy with the engineering system. 

 

 

[mccoy]

9 minutes ago, Dean Pomerleau said:

So mccoy, what changes to your diet and/or lifestyle are you carrying forward as a result of your glucose monitoring experiment? Are you really going high fat / keto and completely cutting out fruit? 

--Dean 

Dean, yes, as much as I love fresh fruit I had to conclude that, at least in my case, I should temporarily refrain and continue my lowish-carb experiment (not extreme keto). I'm going to post the details in the other thread, the glucose-cholesterol optimization. After these 2 weeks my glucose baseline went down of about 10 mg/dL (from 106 before to 96 after) measured with a strip glucometer with 7% MARD.

[mccoy]

This is the link of the other thread, where I'm going to post my dietary changes which I think to mantain for the next few months.

 

 

[mccoy]

My wife has recently installed a Freestyle libre2 sensor. The data were pretty much erratic and incongruous with the strip data. It is clear that some units are flawed. In this case, a complaint should be sent to Abbot, AFAIK they'll replace the faulty piece.

[Ron Put]

11 hours ago, mccoy said:

My wife has recently installed a Freestyle libre2 sensor. The data were pretty much erratic and incongruous with the strip data. It is clear that some units are flawed. In this case, a complaint should be sent to Abbot, AFAIK they'll replace the faulty piece.

 

I guess it's imperative to compare each patch to a blood glucose monitor, otherwise one will not be aware if the patch data is faulty. Bummer, as I am prick-averse and was hoping to pick up a patch when traveling to a country where they are available without a prescription.