Ashley Capoot wearing a CGM.
Ashley Capoot | CNBC
Because it seems, exercise is nice for you. So is sleep, and unfortunately, so are vegetables.
I’ve heard these health adages a whole lot of times before, but they honestly began to hit home for me this winter as I tested out a metabolic health platform from the startup Signos. Briefly, the corporate offers a subscription service that features a small continuous glucose monitor (CGM), which you stick in your arm or abdomen, that sends that data to the Signos app which, in turn, goals to enable you to drop extra pounds by keeping track of your blood sugar.
The subscription price varies depending on the plan you choose. A one-month plan starts at $449, but a 6-month plan starts at about $143 a month should you pay upfront. But services like this, once reserved for diabetics, may soon offer a complete recent revenue stream for health corporations. Dexcom, for instance, recently received FDA clearance for its over-the-counter Stelo product, expected to launch this summer. Meanwhile, Signos competes with other firms like NutriSense, Veri and Levels.
I desired to get a first-hand understanding of what these glucose monitors are like, so I gave Signos’ latest system, which uses a Dexcom G7 monitor, a try. Here’s what I learned.
Signos
Founded in 2018, Signos uses continuous glucose monitors, or CGMs, and a man-made intelligence-powered app to assist people higher understand their metabolisms. The corporate gives users personalized insights into how their bodies reply to specific foods and once they should exercise to get the perfect results for weight reduction.
Glucose is a form of sugar we receive from food, and it is the body’s essential source of energy. A CGM is a small sensor that pokes through the skin to trace a person’s blood glucose levels, or blood sugar levels, in real-time. The sensor is often worn on the upper arm or abdomen, and it will possibly wirelessly transmit data to a smartphone.
CGMs are primarily utilized by individuals with diabetes since they might help patients get alerted to emergencies. But Signos’ CGM system is supposed for average consumers, so it isn’t intended for diabetes management. Other corporations like Abbott Laboratories are also launching consumer-facing CGM systems within the U.S. this 12 months.
Signos’ platform teaches users how their every day habits like eating regimen, hydration, exercise, stress and sleep affect their glucose and could cause it to spike.
Glucose spikes occur when the quantity of sugar present within the bloodstream rapidly increases. This often happens after eating. Within the short term, spikes could cause feelings of lethargy and fatigue, but high blood sugar can result in more serious health problems like diabetes, heart disease and kidney disease over time, in keeping with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Everyone’s glucose levels are variable, so spikes and dips are inevitable, but Signos goals to assist people reduce the intensity and frequency of their spikes. The corporate says that maintaining relatively stable glucose levels might help people improve the health of their metabolism, drop extra pounds and ultimately reduce the danger of chronic disease.
Getting arrange
Woman with Signos wearable and app
Source: Signos
To start with Signos, I needed to take a fast questionnaire that asked me for some basic biological information and details about my medical history. I submitted my answers for review by an independent physician, and my CGM prescription was approved and began processing for shipment just a few hours later.
After a few days, my kit arrived in a brown Signos box. It includes an guide, the CGMs, alcohol wipes and athletic patches to place over the CGM once it’s applied. I followed the instructions within the manual and downloaded the Signos app, which prompted me to establish accounts with Signos and the CGM company Dexcom.
Dexcom makes the CGMs that Signos uses, though Dexcom’s products are exclusively designed for patients diagnosed with diabetes. Signos is using Dexcom’s CGMs as a part of a clinical study approved by an institutional review board designated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which monitors biomedical research involving real people, Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer, Signos’ co-founder and CEO, told CNBC in October.
Dexcom Ventures also backs Signos as an investor, and the firm participated within the $20 million funding round that Signos announced last fall.
Signos’ platform works with Dexcom’s G6 CGM and the newer G7 CGM. I tested the platform using the G7, which Signos launched in January. The G6 and the G7 sensors last for 10 days, and I went through three G7s during my trial.
Ashley Capoot wearing a CGM.
Ashley Capoot | CNBC
Once I had arrange my accounts, it was time to placed on my first sensor, which I was nervous about.
I’m generally nice around needles, though I are likely to look away if I must get a shot on the doctor’s office. The CGM’s needle is small – it looks like someone clicked a mechanical pencil just a few times, for comparison – but I cannot say I was excited to stay it into my arm.
Much to my relief, applying the sensor is straightforward and painless.
The Signos app walked me through the method step-by-step, offering a one-minute video and a series of GIFs I could watch. I cleaned the back of my left arm with an alcohol wipe, placed the applicator there, pressed the button on the applicator and popped the CGM, needle and all, right onto my arm. The G7 is white, concerning the size of 1 / 4, and possibly half an inch thick.
I paired the CGM to the Signos app by enabling Bluetooth and scanning the corresponding QR code on my applicator. Once the CGM was applied and paired to my app, I put a purple athletic patch on top to assist protect the sensor from tugging, sweat and water.
It took the sensor about half-hour to regulate to my body before it was warmed up and able to go.
What’s good
I was anxious that the CGM can be painful or cumbersome, but I forgot about it often, and it is easy to wear normal clothes and jackets over it, even in the event that they have tight sleeves.
I experienced some sensitivity for a pair days when sleeping on my left side, particularly after changing out the sensor. My upper arm felt just a little tender, like there was a lightweight bruise. Nonetheless, I selected to wear the CGM in the identical place on my left arm every time, and I think I could have avoided that sensitivity if I had switched between my left arm and my right arm.
I had never seen or interpreted glucose data before, and I thought the Signos platform did a pleasant job explaining concepts and breaking them down. The app led me through a series of short articles and activities to start, like how to log my meals and exercise.
It also introduced me to the concept of my “optimal glucose range,” which is where Signos wants you to try and keep your glucose levels. Signos starts by setting the upper certain of the range at 120 mg/dL, and the lower certain at 80 mg/dL, however the app’s algorithm adjusts it based in your body’s patterns. My upper certain was eventually adjusted to 126 mg/dL, as an illustration.
If you take a look at the Signos home page, you may see your real-time glucose reading, your glucose level graph (which incorporates a shaded area to point your optimal range), and the share of time you’ve got spent within the range every day. This could possibly be particularly helpful for folk who could also be prediabetic and wish to control their levels over time.
Once I got the hang of the fundamentals, Signos prompted me with more activities and articles that helped me experiment and deepen my understanding of my blood sugar. As an illustration, one activity encouraged me to try exercising right after a meal, and when I did, I saw it drastically reduced the spike I was experiencing.
One other activity had me try and guess what I thought my glucose levels were at different points throughout the day. I was surprised how quickly I began to know the correlation between how I was feeling and my current reading. You possibly can skip activities should you don’t desire to do them, but on the entire, I found them interesting and useful.
Signos also has registered dieticians on staff, and users can ask them questions via chat, email or through a phone consultation. I arrange a gathering after my first week wearing a CGM, and I found it very helpful. I asked a bunch of questions on my data and the Signos app itself, and I also got some recommendations on what to try and work on next.
I knew the experience can be personalized, but I don’t think I’ve ever had this much specific insight into what is going on in my body. I found it fascinating to see how I responded to different foods, and there have been some surprises.
I often eat easy oatmeal for breakfast, for instance, and have at all times considered it as a comparatively healthy meal. But really, I learned oatmeal causes my glucose to spike significantly. On Feb. 9, oatmeal raised my levels from 88 mg/dL to 167 mg/dL. So while it could be a terrific breakfast for some people, oatmeal is not necessarily the perfect alternative for me.
I was less surprised by my reactions to many other foods, but I still found it precious to strengthen these concepts with data. Processed foods like chips and sweets caused large spikes in my levels, but fruits, vegetables and protein-rich meals had a way more gradual impact. I eat greek yogurt as a snack so much, as an illustration, and I found that it hardly caused my levels to spike.
It felt powerful to see how my body responded to nutritious food and it definitely made me more conscious of the alternatives I was making.
Ashley Capoot wearing a CGM.
Ashley Capoot | CNBC
Because it seems, spikes in your blood sugar may be brought on by a complete lot greater than just food. That was news to me. Along with logging meals and exercise, the Signos app has a “Tags” feature where you may write notes and select from an inventory of greater than 60 different possible spike-causing culprits. A few of the options include stress, travel, medication, sickness, crying and even a hot shower.
I learned that my glucose tends to spike while I’m writing a breaking news story (who knew!), and I spend less time in my optimal range when I’m feeling drained. I had a very stressful week at work in January, and looking back at my readings, I can definitely tell.
I found it helpful to visualise how all kinds of various factors, some inside my control and some not, could impact my blood sugar. It really drives home the concept you’re affected by the world around you.
And for bonus points, the CGM is a terrific conversation starter.
I found that my friends, family and colleagues were really curious about the device and what I was learning from it. Since it is not all that common for the typical person to wear CGMs yet, I think there was a component of novelty there.
Finally, it is easy to take off the CGM when it expires. After the ten days are up, you just grab the adhesive and peel it off like a sticker.
What’s bad
Signos’ user interface is straightforward to make use of, but some features were more intuitive than others.
It took me just a few days to learn how to input my sleep, as an illustration, because I couldn’t work out how to log the hours appropriately. It was also hard to gauge how much detail to make use of when logging my meals, as I tended to maintain my entries to simply just a few words. I might need gotten more specific insights and fine-tuned my algorithm further if I had more guidance there.
Moreover, it wasn’t at all times possible for me to have interaction with the platform’s alerts and activities, particularly through the work day.
After eating a meal, I would often get a “Fast Rise” notification from my Signos app, which indicates that a glucose spike is going on. The notification encourages users to have interaction in 20 to half-hour of “brisk walking” or 10 to quarter-hour of plyometrics, a type of high-intensity exercise, to assist reduce the spike. I work in-person at CNBC’s newsroom three days every week, so this often wasn’t realistic for me to do.
I asked about this notification when I met with the Signos dietitian, and she told me that any movement is helpful, even when it’s just a fast walk up or down a flight of stairs. I tried to ensure to take a lap across the newsroom once I learned that, but I think it might have been helpful to know upfront, too.
A “Fast Rise” notification on Signos.
Subscriptions to Signos are expensive, and for a lot of users, CGMs are usually not covered by insurance yet. Customers who join for Signos can select a one-month, three-month or six-month plan.
The steep price tag is unquestionably price considering. In keeping with its website, Signos said users who’ve been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes may give you the option to get the price of the CGM covered by their insurer. But users who wouldn’t have type 2 diabetes could also be out of luck.
The corporate said some people may give you the option to make use of their Health Savings Account reimbursement funds to cover the Signos, but that it “isn’t answerable for reimbursement in any capability,” in keeping with the positioning.
In other words, users who wish to try and reduce the prices of the platform must try and figure it out themselves.
I also found myself checking the Signos app often, almost prefer it became one other type of social media. This gave me some pause.
I have been fortunate to have had a comparatively positive relationship with food throughout my life, and I’m also not someone who experiences much health anxiety. Even so, I tried to be very conscious of my mindset and attitude toward the Signos platform. I treated Signos like a tool and a learning experience, and I really didn’t wish to put an excessive amount of emphasis on the numbers.
I knew that approach can be best for me, and it worked well for essentially the most part. Nonetheless, I did catch myself feeling guilty about large spikes on just a few occasions.
As I noticed those feelings, and how often I was checking the app, I felt prefer it was pretty easy to see how the platform could find yourself being harmful for some users’ mental health, particularly in the event that they’ve struggled with body image or eating disorders.
Signos said all prospective members are asked about their medical history, including disordered eating, of their initial medical questionnaire. If someone is actively experiencing or in recovery from an eating disorder, Signos said the independent physician wouldn’t approve them for participation within the Signos program.
The corporate said it doesn’t recommend any specific eating style, and there are metabolic health coaches on staff to assist check in with users about how they feel.
As with most things, I think trusting yourself is essential here. For those who don’t think accessing your metabolic data can be good to your mental health, then using a CGM might be not a terrific idea. You too can at all times check in along with your doctor to choose if the technology is correct for you.
Takeaways
The Signos experience really depends upon you, the user.
The app is not going to do the training or make lifestyle changes for you, so should you aren’t willing to take the time to log your meals and complete activities, chances are high you will not get much out of the platform.
As a young and relatively healthy individual, I wasn’t sure what to anticipate from Signos, but I learned so much about how my body responds to my eating regimen, sleep, exercise and stress. The CGM is like just a little window into what goes on beneath the skin, and I think it is easy to see why it is a precious tool. After only one month of use, I have a deeper understanding of why I feel sleepy, lethargic or energized.
I would not be surprised if I return to CGM systems at different stages of my life to raised understand how I am responding to my nutrition and the world around me.