January AI glucose monitor review: A pricey but effective approach to fine-tune your diet

What should you might stroll right into a grocery retailer, scan the barcode on a Rice Krispie deal with, and learn how it might have an effect on your blood sugar earlier than shopping for it? That’s the promise of January, a digital steady glucose monitor (CGM) system that the corporate describes as a “24/7 AI health coach to change the way you live.”

As a middle-aged lady with a household historical past of diabetes and a pizza weak point, I’ve needed to strive a CGM. After greater than every week of testing the January AI system, I discovered it to be an effective software that gave me extra perception into my metabolic well being and really helped me lose just a few kilos. It’s a sizeable funding but can return equally priceless insights should you join a subscription and hold just a few issues in thoughts.

Overview

• After filling out your well being historical past in an internet telehealth session, should you’re accepted, January will ship you a CGM
• Once you connect the CGM to your arm, you log the meals you’ve eaten, scan the sensor with your telephone, and the January app exhibits your glucose ranges in real-time
• You should additionally sync with an Apple Watch or an Oura Ring to file your exercise ranges
• After 5 days, January will present detailed suggestions for meals to eat and actions, taking your preferences under consideration
• A one-month subscription prices $288, and an annual subscription is $380

Pros

• Provides suggestions in real-time on how varied meals will have an effect on your glucose ranges
• Includes a complete database of meals. You may enter utilizing a QR code on-site in a retailer
• Fun to use
• Recommends exercise to counteract excessive glucose ranges
• Provides meal plans and exercise suggestions primarily based on your dietary wants and preferences

Cons

• Somewhat costly
• Might not be good for somebody with a historical past of disordered consuming round calorie restriction
• Sensor got here out considerably simply

Verdict: If you’re involved about your threat of diabetes due to household historical past, bodily well being, or age, otherwise you simply need customized suggestions on how to reside more healthy, the January AI system is a helpful and enjoyable software.

What is a steady glucose monitor (CGM)?

Continuous glucose displays had been initially developed within the Nineteen Eighties to assist diabetics hold tabs on their blood glucose, or blood sugar, ranges. People with diabetes have hassle making insulin, a hormone secreted by the pancreas that enables glucose to be utilized by cells for vitality. Glucose then stays within the bloodstream, conserving blood sugar ranges excessive over time. Chronic excessive blood sugar may harm the kidneys, coronary heart, and nervous system.

While CGMs used to require customers to prick their fingers to take a look at their blood sugar, newer CGMs embrace a small sensor that goes beneath the pores and skin. The sensor will then transmit readings of your glucose ranges to a tool that may analyze them. Pioneering CGM makers embrace Dexcom, which made the primary CGM that didn’t require a finger pricking and obtained FDA approval for diabetics in 2016.

Increasingly, individuals who aren’t diabetic, together with elite athletes, are utilizing CGMs to get a extra granular sense of their metabolic well being. Other standard CGMs that hold popping up in my Instagram feed embrace Nutrisense and Levels. Tech websites have speculated for years about Apple’s attainable plan to construct a CGM into the Apple Watch. However, CGMs nonetheless require a medical prescription, and their use by individuals who haven’t been identified with diabetes has generated debate within the medical neighborhood. One perspective printed within the journal JAMA described CGMs for non-diabetics as a “waste of time and money.” 

Other docs level to the greater than 120 million Americans who both have already got diabetes or are prediabetic. Peter Attia, M.D., who co-authored the bestselling ebook, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, makes the case that the standard blood sugar exams that sufferers get yearly don’t reveal each day spikes that may sign a brewing drawback.

“In the vast majority of cases, today’s normal individual is tomorrow’s diabetic patient if something isn’t done to detect and prevent this slide,” Attia writes. Fluctuating glucose ranges have additionally been related to an elevated threat of coronary heart illness, most cancers, and Alzheimer’s illness, he notes.

While I’m typically wholesome, I used to be enthusiastic about studying extra about my blood sugar ranges and the way they may have an effect on my life. My dad and mom had been identified with Type II diabetes of their 40s, so I checked the household historical past field. After dropping pounds early within the pandemic, I placed on some kilos final yr. And regardless of coaching for my first marathon, I discovered that every one the train wasn’t serving to get me into higher form as simply as working did once I was youthful. 

True, the lab outcomes from the final time I used to be examined after a go to to my major care physician in September 2022 handed muster. My glucose stage of 87 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) was in the midst of the traditional vary, but my hemoglobin A1C—the usual take a look at that measures the typical of blood glucose over 90 days—was 5.5%, on the excessive facet of regular.

According to the CDC,  a studying of 99 mg/dL or decrease is regular for fasting blood sugar, whereas 100 to 125 mg/dL alerts that you simply’re prediabetic, and 126 mg/dL or greater signifies you will have diabetes. Would seeing these spikes on my telephone simply after consuming assist me make higher choices?

The background

Monitoring each day fluctuations in blood sugar can present a a lot better window into your metabolic well being, says Noosheen Hashemi, January’s co-founder and CEO. She grew to become passionate a couple of extra holistic approach to well being care after studying the reality about her dad and mom’ medical situations. Doctors failed to diagnose her father with prostate most cancers whereas he was being handled for one more most cancers. And her mom’s coronary heart failure was misdiagnosed as bronchial asthma.

“Once you fall into that sick journey, all sorts of things can happen to you,” Hashemi says. “So I became obsessed with: ‘How can we know sooner, what can we know, and why do we know so little?’”

She teamed up with Michael Snyder, Ph.D., chair of Genetics and Director of Genomics and Personalized Medicine at Stanford School of Medicine. Snyder was conducting analysis that exposed a inhabitants of people that seemed to have wholesome blood sugar ranges really ceaselessly had spikes by which their glucose reached diabetic ranges.

“He believed this was a ticking time bomb and that we should look into it,” Hashemi says. “That’s how we got started.”

That was greater than 5 years in the past. They’ve since used machine studying to develop a library of meals full with dietary data and included knowledge from their medical research and 1000’s of customers to develop and refine fashions for predicting glucose spikes.

They additionally realized that many of the their customers weren’t diabetics, but as an alternative what Hashemi describes as “optimizers and discoverers”: match folks trying to optimize their well being or individuals who had potential threat components, equivalent to a household historical past, like me. Hashemi is optimistic that the FDA will approve CGMs for non-diabetics subsequent yr.

The setup

People enthusiastic about utilizing January have to full a telehealth analysis on-line. The course of includes filling out an internet type, not a digital interplay with a reside healthcare skilled.

For $288 ($260 for the gear and $28 for the membership), you get a Freestyle Libre CGM, entry to January AI’s glycemic meals database and proposals by means of its app, and $40 off an Oura Ring (Gen 2 or Gen 3) to observe your exercise. (You may use an Apple Watch, which I did.) If you’re accepted, the Freestyle Libre will arrive within the mail shortly. 

Easy-to-follow movies on the Freestyle LibreHyperlink app confirmed me how to apply the CGM sensor. I felt a slight pin prick and delicate soreness once I put in the sensor on my left higher arm. The app is related to a medical follow primarily based in California. After agreeing to use of my well being knowledge, I used to be up and working. 

Then utilizing the January app, I used to be instructed how to scan the sensor with my telephone and sync my Apple Watch. Once the sensor is lively, it’s prepared to ship real-time glucose readings after every scan. Over the subsequent 5 days, January’s AI would analyze my glucose ranges, exercise, and what I used to be consuming and examine it to its 1000’s of customers to predict my physique’s response to varied meals and train. “It takes inputs from your heart rate monitor and your food log and your CGM to build a digital twin for you,” Hashemi says. 

The efficiency

I started utilizing January on the finish of June, logging my meals and scanning the CGM. I discovered the meals database fairly complete, though generally it took some scrolling down to discover the precise meals.

I used to be warned that the preliminary glucose ranges could possibly be both excessive or very low throughout the first 24 to 48 hours because the CGM calibrated to my system. My first blood sugar studying was very low—58 mg/dL—which obtained me googling hypoglycemia. 

Then I ate a small bowl of vegetable ramen leftover from an evening out at a restaurant the evening earlier than. I scanned the CGM with my telephone about 5 minutes after consuming and located my glucose was within the regular vary: 90 mg/dL.

The January app supplies stories on the day gone by in three classes: Nourish (energy, fiber consumption, and macros); Move (post-meal exercise, time exercised, and energy burned); and Recharge (fasting interval, last-meal sleep hole, and sleep period). After the 5 preliminary days of research, January’s AI notified me that it had created my digital twin and commenced making suggestions for meals decisions and exercise.

I’ve by no means caught with meals logs previously, but the power to rapidly see how particular gadgets affected my blood sugar grew to become one thing I seemed ahead to testing. I additionally found that requirement to log what I used to be consuming supplied further incentive to eat higher. I had been prioritizing protein over refined carbs over the previous few months and was glad to see that consuming Greek yogurt, flax seeds, and blueberries for breakfast obtained me a shoutout for protein and fiber objectives. I additionally dialed again on the snacking that’s too simple to do when working from house about six ft from the fridge.

I felt compelled within the title of science to see how a slice of pesto pizza and a Rice Krispie deal with would have an effect on my readings. As anticipated, these meals spiked my blood sugar greater than my virtuous breakfast. When I had a excessive studying, the app really useful a stroll after the meal. The January app additionally supplied options primarily based on your preferences (though I used to be wasn’t excited to change chia seeds with dried spirulina).

You may attain out by means of the app to a digital well being coach named Jan, who supplies chatbot solutions on the whole lot from what it’s best to eat for lunch to creating a brand new train plan. The firm can also be within the technique of including extra FAQs, equivalent to what’s a standard glucose stage. Hashemi is fast to level out, nonetheless, that January is just not a healthcare supplier, but it does present life-style suggestions primarily based on their (and your) knowledge. 

In truth, January has specific behaviors that it’s main customers towards, together with adopting intermittent fasting, growing fiber consumption, aligning calorie consumption with exercise stage, getting post-meal motion, and lowering glucose-spiking meals.

I used to be doing fairly properly with all of those, but sadly, after eight days of testing, I by chance dislodged my sensor whereas getting dressed. But January’s AI nonetheless supplied loads of priceless insights throughout the time I used it. My blood sugar was principally low to regular, but I did see just a few spikes that took me out of my regular vary. And I did lose just a few kilos and got here to admire the significance of higher self-discipline and common meals. I did want there was extra data for folks with readings on the low facet.

But whereas the nudge towards intermittent fasting is likely to be useful for a lot of (myself included), I noticed the way it might additionally trigger issues for folks with a propensity for disordered consuming round calorie restriction. It involved me that after I finished logging meals, the app indicated on days once I didn’t enter meals that the variety of energy I consumed was “excellent.”

So, who should purchase the January system?

Yes, $288 for a month’s subscription sounds costly. But should you typically eat the identical issues, 30 days will provide you with loads of time to analyze your well being knowledge and see how totally different meals have an effect on you. I’m hopeful that glucose stage monitoring will turn into extra accessible and reasonably priced, taking into account the estimated 96 million Americans over age 18 characterised as prediabetic.

Technological advances have made it attainable for us to see our coronary heart fee with a fast look at our wrist, a luxurious lots of our dad and mom didn’t have. Now, the power to take a look at our blood sugar is now nearly as frictionless as posting on Instagram. If you’re involved about your glucose ranges due to household historical past or simply need to fine-tune your well being, January’s AI will help with each day insights and customized suggestions. Just do not forget that it’s a software and doesn’t change common visits to your healthcare supplier.