Should EVERYONE use a Continuous Glucose Monitor? - Dr. G's Quick Health Tip | EP 377.B

Summary

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The Dr. Gundry Podcast

Episode Title: Should EVERYONE use a Continuous Glucose Monitor? - Dr. G's Quick Health Tip | EP 377.B
Host: Dr. Steven Gundry
Date: November 13, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Dr. Steven Gundry explores the growing trend of using Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) not just for people with diabetes but as a broader tool for metabolic health and diet personalization. He investigates whether these devices are universally beneficial, evaluates their cost and accessibility, and offers his nuanced take on how data from CGMs might fit into a long-term healthy lifestyle—especially considering the latest FDA approvals for over-the-counter access.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise and Role of CGMs (Continuous Glucose Monitors)

• Definition & Mechanism:
  Dr. Gundry explains how CGMs work:
  • Small sensor/needle under the skin, worn with a patch
  • Continuously measures glucose in the interstitial fluid and sends the data to a device or smartphone
  • Provides real-time trend updates ([01:05])
• Historical Use:
  Originally for diabetics to avoid frequent finger-pricking. Many relied on how they felt rather than concrete, frequent measurements—missing periods of high blood sugar and reducing effective management.

2. Potential Benefits of CGMs for Everyone

• Metabolic Health:
  Citing a "Cell Metabolism" study, Dr. Gundry notes even non-diabetics can have significant glucose spikes after meals, possibly contributing to metabolic disorders ([03:10]).

  “You can find the foods that cause these spikes and then make dietary adjustments over time to minimize those spikes.” — Dr. Gundry ([03:37])

• Weight Management:
  Reference to "The Journal of Nutrition"—stable glucose reduces cravings and prevents overeating. Personalized dietary plans are possible by understanding specific food responses ([03:57]).
• Energy & Mood Stability:
  Dr. Gundry discusses well-known “sugar tantrums” in children and mood/energy fluctuations in adults due to blood sugar ([04:16]). Tracking this with wearables could help spot patterns.

3. Recent Changes in CGM Accessibility

• Regulation Update:
  FDA's approval of the first over-the-counter CGM (Dexcom Stelo, no prescription needed), expected to cost about $90/month (~$3/day), making CGMs more accessible for wellness-minded consumers ([05:39]).

  “That's quite frankly less than a cup of coffee for this information. So that's really going to change the entire field.” — Dr. Gundry ([05:49])

4. Personalized Responses & Practical Use Cases

• Dr. Gundry recounts an example from Professor Tim Spector (of Zoe) showing individual differences:
  • Tim's wife is highly carb-tolerant; he isn’t—eating the same test meal leads to radically different glucose and insulin spikes for them ([07:43]).
  • Key insight: Once you know your own response to foods, continuous monitoring is largely unnecessary for most.

  “Once he learned what his response to this test meal, he doesn't need any more continuous glucose monitoring … Same way with his wife, she knows what's going to happen to her.” — Dr. Gundry ([08:26])

5. Do You Need to Monitor Forever? (Limits to Data Obsession)

• Dr. Gundry stresses not to become obsessed with constant bio-tracking:
  • Cites a study comparing the timing of carb-heavy meals and the Mediterranean diet—timing doesn’t matter as much as overall dietary pattern.
  • Agreement with Dr. Michael Greger: Just because you can monitor, doesn’t mean you should obsess ([10:23]).
• Wearables as “entertainment value”:
  • Dr. Gundry jokes about using two sleep trackers (Oura Ring and WHOOP) that often disagree, and picking whichever result flatters him ([11:30]).

  “My point is, these things are useful up to a point. … you can get carried away with focusing instantaneously on, ‘Oh my gosh, my blood Sugar went up 20 points and I'm gonna die.’ That's not what's going to happen.” — Dr. Gundry ([12:00])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Democratized Access:

  “It's a brand new world we're entering and it's maybe well worth your time to buy it once, track for a month, test which foods are your friends, test which foods are not your friends. But quite frankly, all you gotta do is follow the Plant Paradox program ... and don't worry about it, it will take care of itself.” — Dr. Gundry ([12:27])

• On Limitations:

  “Just because you know what's going to spike your blood sugar doesn't mean you have to keep working [keep] wearing this to kind of fixate on this.” — Dr. Gundry ([10:50])

• Biohacking Satire:

  “I wear them for entertainment value because they totally disagree with each other.” (on having two sleep trackers) — Dr. Gundry ([11:42])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:05] — What is a CGM? How do they work?
• [03:10] — Benefits for non-diabetics: Finding metabolic triggers
• [05:39] — Over-the-counter FDA approval and price point
• [07:43] — Individual glucose response story (Tim Spector & Zoe)
• [09:30] — Should you wear a CGM long-term? Study on carbs and diet timing
• [11:30] — “Entertainment value” of wearables and not getting obsessed
• [12:27] — Takeaway message: Use for a month, learn, and move on

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Conclusion & Takeaway

Dr. Gundry concludes that while CGMs can be a powerful tool for personalizing nutrition, understanding metabolic responses, and managing energy and weight, their best use for most healthy individuals is short-term:
Try it for a month, learn your unique meal responses, and move forward following a balanced diet such as his Plant Paradox plan or the Mediterranean diet. Obsession with real-time data from wearables is neither necessary nor beneficial for long-term health and happiness.

Episode tone: Casual, informative, slightly humorous in his critiques of health tech trends, and reassuring about not overcomplicating your path to wellness.

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Transcript

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[C]

We're going to look at one of the most trendy pieces of wearable biometric technology. And I'm not talking about sleep rings. We're talking about the continuous glucose monitor, or cgms. Now, before we get started, please don't forget to like subscribe and share this episode. Okay, so the Emergency emergence of CGMs or continuous glucose monitors has really been life changing for many people with diabetes. With these CGMs, people with diabetes can constantly monitor their blood sugar levels and don't have to prick their fingers multiple times a day. Now this means the pain of poking is gone, but it means that most of my diabetic patients had to check their blood sugars multiple times a day. Most of them didn't and really relied on really how they felt or whether they were crashing to really know where their blood sugars were. A lot of the times they recognized their crashes, but they didn't recognize when their blood sugar levels were extremely high. And that was really part of the problem with managing these folks. Now with a cgm, most people now recognize them. They've seen them. You might be wearing one even now. This inserts a small needle under the skin that comes with a patch and you wear this and it literally measures the amount of glucose in the interstitial space between your cells. And it then sends this information to either a smartphone or sometimes it's a different device that you carry with you that updates the trends. Okay, now there are a lot of possible and real benefits for this. First of all, Metabolic health. There was a recent study published in cell metabolism found that even people without diabetes can experience significant glucose spikes after meals, which can contribute to metabolic disorders over time. What benefit CGM does to these people is you can find the foods that cause these spikes and then make dietary adjustments over time to minimize those spikes. Okay, that sounds pretty good. Weight management. A study in the Journal of Nutrition showed that stable blood sugar levels can help with weight management by reducing cravings and preventing overeating. By tracking glucose responses to different foods, people then could create a personalized diet plan that promotes weight loss or for that matter, maintenance energy levels and moods. Now, as anyone with young children knows, fluctuations in blood sugar levels can affect energy and mood. The sugar tantrums of children are well known. The hyperness of sugar in children is well known. Similarly, the fall in blood sugars causing changes in mood or even affect are extremely well known to diabetics, but also to most laypeople who notice these changes. So correlating a CGM with mood sounds like a good idea. Now, one of the problems with CGMs has been that you needed a prescription to get a CGM and doctors were supposed to only prescribe them for people with a code of diabetes. Now that's a problem. You have probably noticed there are a great number of companies that have sprung up with telemedicine teledocs who will be more than happy to prescribe off label a glucose monitor if you subscribe to their program. Now, all that changed a couple of months ago when in March of this year, the FDA approved the first over the counter continuous glucose monitor without a prescription. Now we're waiting for the rollout. I suppose I could tell you who it is. It's the Dexcom Stelo. I have no relationship. There is another competing device from a different company that's not yet approved, but probably will be. So what? Well, interestingly enough, insurance plans usually cover about all but 30 or $40 a month for these continuous glucose monitors. This continuous glucose monitor, when it comes on the market, and we anticipate it, actually any day now will cost about $90 a month over the counter. What does that mean? That's $3 a day and that's quite frankly less than a cup of coffee for this information. So that's really going to change the entire field. So the question is, okay, there's all these benefits. Is it really going to change habits or is it worth knowing what happens, for instance, after a meal?

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[C]

I've had Professor Tim Spector from on my program. Tim is intimately involved with a company called Zoe, a really good company, a weight management company. I have no interest in that company. But Tim makes a very good point and I'll second that point. He uses a test meal that is administered to his patients as a telemedicine service that basically looks at not only glucose spikes, but insulin spikes to a test meal. And he loves to tell the story, and I think I tell it right, that his wife is incredibly tolerant of carbohydrates. So she can eat this test meal, which quite frankly has a lot of carbohydrates and basically nothing happens. Her blood sugar doesn't spike, her insulin doesn't spike. He does the exact same meal, his blood sugar spikes, his insulin spikes, and that's not fair. But this just one example of eating a test meal now informs him that carbohydrates, at least in the form of his test meal, are pretty mischievous to him, but not to his wife. So they can actually eat very differently. Now the point I'm making is once he learned what his response to this test meal, he doesn't need any more continuous glucose monitoring. He knows what's going to happen to him. Same way with his wife, she knows what's going to happen to her. So once that initial test is done, so what? Why is that important? Well, if low carbohydrates, or keeping your blood sugar low following a meal, which sounds like a really good idea, is important for long term health, then we might want to design a study that looked at people who compress their carbohydrate load to a particular part of the day, for instance, a study was done of eating your carbohydrates quite early in the morning versus eating your carbohydrates quite late in the day at dinner versus eating a Mediterranean style diet and looking at the long term outcome in blood sugars, in weight management, in insulin resistance, in metabolic syndrome, in prediabetes and diabetes, and in humans. And guess what they found. It turns out it made absolutely no difference when you had your high carbohydrate load, whether it was in the morning, whether it was at dinner. But the important thing was when you didn't worry about that and just ate a Mediterranean diet, the results were exactly the the same. Now Michael Greger of nutritionfacts.org has said the same thing. And it's one of a number of things that, interestingly enough, he and I agree about. He's one of my fiercest critics. But we actually have a lot of points of agreement and I think this is one of them. Just because you know what's going to spike your blood sugar doesn't mean you have to keep working wearing this to kind of fixate on this. I've made a joke that I wear two sleep monitors, an oura ring and a whoop band which is hiding under here. And I wear them for entertainment value because they totally disagree with each other. And so if, let's say I really want a lot of deep sleep and the whoop band says I got a lot of deep sleep and the aura band said I didn't guess who I'm going to believe. On the other hand, if I want to know, my REM sleep, Rapid eye movement sleep. And the aura band said I got more REM and the whoop band said I didn't guess who I'm going to believe. The aura band. My point is these things are useful up to a point. But like any of these other devices for biohacking, you can get carried away with focusing instantaneously on, oh my gosh, my blood Sugar went up 20 points and I'm gonna die, that's not what's going to happen. So this is a brand new world we're entering and it's maybe well worth your time to buy it once. Track for a month. Test which foods are your friends. Test which foods are not your friends. But quite frankly, all you gotta do is follow the Plant Paradox program like this study showed. And don't worry about it, it will take care of itself.

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