This new wearable tells you what samosas and sleep can do to your blood sugar levels

Glucose trackers are no longer just for diabetics. Some millennials are using them to transform their lifestyles

- Ketaki Desai

A personal guinea pig for all things fitness is how Nikhil Jois describes himself. So, when the 31-year-old Bengaluru resident heard about Ultrahu man — a startup that has come up with the Cyborg, a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) wearable device in the form of a non-invasive patch — he knew he was in. Their app tells him how his blood sugar level reacts to different foods and forms of exercise. “I’m South Indian — half Kannadiga and half Telugu — and I realised that my body reacts better to wheat than rice. My Madrasi passport should be taken away,” he jokes, adding that the post-lunch lull he had become accustomed to has become a thing of the past since he’s (committed cultural sacrilege and) shifted to chapatis.

Glucose trackers may have been invented to free diabetics from those daily finger pricks, but now the technology is being used by nondiabetic youngsters who want to improve their lifestyle by using real-time data. This is in sync with growing awareness that health and fitness isn’t just about how our bodies look on Instagram. Bengaluru-based Ultrahuman is one of the startups occupying this digital health space, along with international players such as ZOE, which analyses gut, blood fat and blood sugar responses. Abbott also manufactures a wearable device for the same. What they do is show you how a samosa can spike your sugar level or how a short walk can bring it down.