If SuperLopez taught me anything in the nineties it was responsibility, humor and teamwork. The only way to explain it is when my partner Enrique told me they offered us a try Ultrahuman M1A glucometer that you stick to your skin for two weeks, even if you’re not diabetic, says “yes.”
The responsibility to tell our readers about using a glucometer without being diabetic, the ridiculousness of getting injections without a pay raise in return, and colleagues making sure no one goes there.
Let’s get into trouble.
what. A glucometer like any diabetic can use to monitor their blood glucose at all times thanks to the filament Interstitial space, a subcutaneous network where glucose appears after reaching the blood. Something common for diabetics For about ten years.
It connects to smartphones and sends data via Bluetooth. Technically, Glucometer is a generic pharmacy, what Ultrahuman provides is application and data management.
- superhuman A company that launches products at the intersection between technology and health. He is famous for his ring, Ring Air.
It is not for diabetics. The Ultrahuman approach is for anyone who wants to know their body better and understand what causes glucose spikes: food, quantity, effort… In recent years, there has been a growing concern about controlling glycemic spikes and, above all, not spreading excess. This may be useful for (more) endurance athletes who want to optimize their supplementation.
This is the theory. Let’s practice before drawing conclusions.
How to apply. The box that arrives at home contains the glucometer, its applicator and several patches with the brand logo.
what comes home The black box contains the Ultrahuman package (black) and the Glucometer package (yellow, from Abbott Pharmaceutical Company). Photo: BDtechsupport.
And that’s what the Ultrahuman package contains. Promotional wipes, patches and stickers. Photo: BDtechsupport.
Placing the sensor on itself with the app it comes with is as easy as stamping a stamp, it’s no mystery.
Sensor Applicator. The filament seen in the center will dig under our skin and monitor glucose. Photo: BDtechsupport.
Here are the most common questions I’ve been asked in the two weeks that I’ve had on my arm, especially in the immediate circle of people who don’t have diabetes:
- Does it hurt to put it on? No, you won’t notice anything other than a small bump.
- Is it boring to wear? Not at all, I forgot I was wearing it. I remembered it hard in just two moments: when I rubbed it in the shower and realized I had it and had to be careful, and when I got out of the shower and toweled off.
- Can’t you wear it anywhere else? I would have preferred to put it in a more discreet area, but Ultrahuman recommends that it stay right there. Who am I to oppose?
Sensor without protective patch. The photo is when the patch was removed after two weeks with it, the skin was slightly damaged. Photo: BDtechsupport.
After putting it on, the app starts showing us graphs with blood glucose levels, updated every few minutes.
I never carried a glucometer, so I was curious to see the effects of every type of food I ate or every physical effort.
Picks match food. Photo: BDtechsupport.
The type of notification that comes. In the morning, it detects when I wake up for integration with health and tells me that my glucose overnight is stable and within the appropriate range. Photo: BDtechsupport.
Ultrahuman has a mobile app and a watch app, so I could see my glucose in real time without logging into the app. I only had to look at my phone’s lock screen or my watch face.
Below the iPhone clock, on the right, is the glucose value. On the Apple Watch it’s the value in the lower right corner. Photo: BDtechsupport.
The Apple Watch app shows both mg/dL of glucose from 0 to 100 and a “metabolic score” based on our history. Photo: BDtechsupport.
Glucose load. Blood glucose is a key indicator for our health. Its value is measured in mg/dL. Normal values ​​are 70 to 100 mg/dL on an empty stomach and less than 140 mg/dL two hours after a meal.
The score value from 0 to 100 that Ultrahuman gives us (the higher the better) and the evolution of our glucose variability (ideally below 12%). Photo: BDtechsupport.
The application is very intuitive and designed to be useful even if the user has no knowledge of glucose: its graphs, colors, notifications and internal explanations are responsible for understanding whether our normal values ​​are too low or too high.
Sure: Ultrahuman wants us the reader to learn the concepts as we use them, but that’s too strong. Within two weeks I received:
- 34 emails.
- 154 notices.
That’s an average of two emails and eleven notifications a day. Emails invite you to explore ideas and that can be interesting, but they become too forceful. Notifications mainly warn of glucose spikes or self-generated reports. In both formats, commercial ads come with offers to renew readers or similar items. A
App for active or passive use. If we use it passively, it shows the glucose curve and gives us information about its evolution that we assume silently. We proactively introduce some “events” that contextualize the curve. A subjective description of what we ate, or what happened to us.
Workout and sleep are added automatically. The food list is somewhat USA-centric and not very compatible with the Mediterranean user. The good: It syncs with more global apps like MyFitnessPal.
That night I ate dinner and had a brownie for dessert that minstrels would sing about. Glucose was equal. It was more erratic than usual during my sleep, when my dessert was fruit. Photo: BDtechsupport.
When you’ve been using the sensor for several days, the app learns from your routine and notifies you when the ideal time slot to exercise comes up. Photo: BDtechsupport.
Ultrahuman writes the glucose data into the health app, so we can check it there. In this screenshot, the effect of one hour of strength training on glucose. Photo: BDtechsupport.
complement. I do sports in two ways: strength training in the gym and running on the asphalt. I don’t need supplements for either, I usually run between 7 and 15 km most of the time.
Ultrahuman scores your supplementation levels after each workout. This time it was strength training, where you have to do very poorly to not get a great score. On foot, cycling or long runs in similar sports, it gets complicated. Photo: BDtechsupport.
However, this supplement starts to get interesting for a half marathon, arriving at the race with a specific load of carbohydrates and during the race so as not to pass out before the finish. I ran one these two weeks. And that’s where the glucometer came into play.
Two interesting things happened:
- I oversupplemented, afraid I wouldn’t have enough energy in the end. The graph reflects this well.
- The first fall corresponds to the end of the race. The next rebound is related to two Coca-Colas complete Sugar that I made. glucose up.
To the left, run. On the right, the aforementioned graph. Photo: BDtechsupport.
Then came the sudden drop (reactive hypoglycemia).
A lesson learned: Even though I have a big build, I don’t need as many energy gels before and during races as I think. A lesser gel and choosing 30 grams instead of 50 grams would definitely be enough. Additional supplementation is not recommended.
The day before the half marathon, the app had already detected that my average glucose was rising, and it guessed the reason: I was eating more carbohydrates than usual. Photo: BDtechsupport.
This kind of accumulated information left me with several lessons along the way:
- Running 10 kilometers on an empty stomach is different from doing it a while ago with a simple banana.
- Junk food lives up to its name when it comes to its effect on our blood glucose: it raises it in a more sustained way.
- A late dinner also has a negative effect.
- Stress, likewise: With less stress or better management, glucose is more stable.
- Sugar has been demonized enough, but seeing its effects in real time is a better deterrent.
Some final considerations. A glucometer connected to an app like Ultrahuman can make sense for non-diabetics: it’s interesting to know our own body and the effects of certain ingredients on it better. Now, it’s invasive, the glucometer only lasts two weeks before you have to throw it away and replace it with another one… and it’s very expensive.
- Two sensors (four weeks) cost 142 euros.
- Six sensors (twelve weeks) cost 404 euros.
And they need to superhumanA $30/year subscription.
Social considerations. Wearing it in short sleeves means people will ask you questions. And not everyone knows about glucometer. A woman at the gym thought she was a physiotherapist with kinesiotape, my partner pair I thought he was giving up smoking and the rest split between “I didn’t know you were diabetic” or a simple “what is it”.
If you wear one, there will be questions. Photo: BDtechsupport.
It’s hard for anyone looking at us not to notice the mysterious patch. Photo: BDtechsupport.
It’s not something I’m going to recommend to everyone.. Only for those who have a prior tendency to use something like that. Or for endurance athletes who need optimized supplementation. For these groups, it’s an interesting and fun option to use if they’re willing to go a bit invasive and expensive.
For those who aren’t there, they can certainly wait for watches that measure glucose non-invasively, although it won’t happen tomorrow. In addition, in healthy people without pathology, I don’t think it is healthy to obsess about glucose, the body regulates it within certain limits and we can fall into the opposite behavior due to excessive suspicion.
Ultrahuman’s tone, starting with its brand name, or the constant allusion to us Cyborg Thanks to its products, it feeds this subtle trend.
I had fun with the Ultrahuman M1 and learned something about my body from it, but it’s not for everyone.
Ultrahuman M1
Featured Image | BDtechsupport
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This device has been provided for testing by Ultrahuman. You can check how we review BDtechsupport and our relationship with companies policy.