Influencers have found their latest wellness obsession — and, once again, diabetics got there first.
First, came GLP-1 drugs.
Now, social media’s health gurus are borrowing another tool that’s been helping people with diabetes for decades, convinced it can unlock the secrets to eating better, training smarter and living longer.
From fitness trainers to bestselling authors, influencers with millions of followers are embracing the trend and reporting back to their fans. But some doctors aren’t convinced people without diabetes have much to gain.
The device at the center of the trend is a continuous glucose monitor, or CGM — a small wearable sensor that tracks blood sugar around the clock.
Designed for people with diabetes, CGMs are typically worn the back of the arm or abdomen. The sensor uses a tiny needle to place a thin, flexible filament just beneath the skin, where it continuously measures glucose levels and sends the data to an app or device.
For people with diabetes, the technology has been life-changing, helping them make decisions about insulin dosing, food and physical activity while reducing the risk of dangerous low blood sugar episodes.
Now, CGMs are becoming one of wellness culture’s hottest accessories.
Last year, the FDA approved Stelo, the first over-the-counter CGM, opening the door for millions of Americans without diabetes to buy one themselves.
Owner company Dexcom markets the device as a way to “track glucose 24/7 to become a healthier you” and has partnered with Oura so users can combine glucose data with sleep, recovery and activity metrics.
Since then, healthy consumers have flocked to the sensors drawn by the claims that monitoring blood sugar can improve metabolic health, aid weight loss, boost athletic performance, sharpen focus and even help prevent disease by revealing how food, stress and exercise affect the body.
French influencer Jessie Inchauspé — better known as Glucose Goddess — documented herself applying a Stelo sensor in a sponsored Instagram Reel for her more than six million followers. The biochemistry graduate has built a massive audience around “simple tools” for minimizing blood sugar spikes without restrictive dieting.
Dr. Jennifer Ashton, an OB-GYN and former chief medical correspondent for ABC News, recounted a month-long CGM “wellness experiment” for her nearly 700,000 Instagram followers to see how different foods affected her glucose levels. Neither Inchauspé nor Ashton have diabetes.
Fitness trainer and creator Ryan Fischer joined the movement as well, sharing his experience with more than 700,000 followers in a Reel titled “What I Learned From Wearing a Continuous Glucose Monitor as a Non-Diabetic.”
Meanwhile, high-profile endorsements from celebrities who do have diabetes — include Nick Jonas and Lance Bass — have piqued fans’ interested, regardless of their own diabetic status.
But some doctors say the social media enthusiasm has outpaced the science.
What do blood glucose levels tell us?
Blood glucose is the body’s primary source of energy and naturally rises after eating before returning to normal levels.
Those fluctuations are a normal part of metabolism, particularly after carbohydrate-rich foods. Over time, repeated and significant blood sugar spikes can contribute to a range of health issues, including insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, heart and kidney disease and weight gain.
For people with diabetes who use insulin, CGMs are invaluable because they help prevent hypogylcemia
— low blood sugar — and improve glucose control by guiding insulin doses, meal planning and physical activity.
For everyone else, however, the picture is much murkier.
Researchers still don’t know whether tracking the normal day-to-day glucose swings of healthy people leads to better long-term health or meaningfully lowers disease risk. There’s also the possibility that all those numbers do more harm than good.
“For a non diabetic individual, a continuous glucose monitor may cause anxiety over normal glucose fluctuations,” endocrinologist Dr. Ayushi Dixit told the Post.
She believes the trend reflects today’s culture of data-driven wellness, where “everyone wants more numbers, more metrics, and more ways to optimize their health.”
While Dixit called CGMs “an incredible life-changing advancement” for people with diabetes — a benefit repeatedly proven in clinical trials — she worries they can become “just another number to fixate on” for non-diabetic users.
Dr. Sadie Elisseou, a general internist, said the popularity of CGMs among healthy people speaks to the collision of two defining wellness trends: technology and longevity.
“Like a lot of other wellness devices they give you tons of data, but we don’t have good evidence that wearing one actually improves long-term health outcomes in people without diabetes,” Elisseou told the Post.
“Just because we can measure something does not mean that we should and more data isn’t always better.”
A 2022 review of the medical literature found little evidence that CGMs improve health outcomes in people without diabetes. The authors predicted, however, that their use in wellness and elite athletics would continue to grow as more consumers embraced personalized health tracking.
Elisseou admits her own view has evolved. She once dismissed the trend as another example of expensive medical technology drifting into mainstream wellness. Today, she sees more nuance.
“Insurance companies and health systems lag behind in prescribing and providing coverage for CGMs, partly because they are not deemed medically necessary for non-insulin-dependent people,” said Elisseou.
But she believes some healthy people can still benefit if they approach the devices with realistic expectations.
Someone who’s genuinely curious about how specific meals, workouts or lifestyle habits affect their blood sugar may gain useful insight, she said — as long as they don’t mistake every normal fluctuation for a health problem.
“If someone without diabetes wears a CGM for 2 weeks and as a result turns their lifestyle around to get healthier and live a longer life, I would argue that’s medically worth it,” she said.
“It’s a new world, and CGMs are part of that.”
