area man can’t enjoy vacay
he provides a great example of CGM use generating noise—not signal—in a person wo diabetes
Bryan obsesses over what he calls a glucose spike after eating bread
it’s a glucose excursion & it demonstrates insulin sensitivity. it doesn’t generate hunger—if it did, GLP-1s would not work
I experienced a huge spike in food noise when in Australia. The desire to eat continuously even though I wasn't hungry, and even full.
The seven time zone shift shocked my circadian rhythm which then altered my hunger hormones.
Leptin stopped signaling that I had enough stored energy. Ghrelin ran elevated all day instead of only before meals. Blood glucose spikes from bread and carbs (that I ate to be in family ritual) triggered emergency hunger signals in my brain
Sleep deprivation weakened my prefrontal cortex's ability to override the urge. Making me feel helpless and controlled by impulse.
That noise has been absent for years as I've dialed in habits of sleep, nutrition and exercise.
It reminded me how burdensome and debilitating the food rumination noise is. How it can feel like food is the only thing the brain can focus on, edging out all other life priorities.
I imagined traveling back in time to when I was helpless to control my eating and being presented with a miracle drug like a GLP-1 which simply flips the switch to turn off the noise.
This imagination also filled me with excitement about the future. If we can turn off food noise, what if we could turn off negative self talk, hedonism, jealously, status comparisons, catastrophizing and boredom.
What if we became effectively immune to companies hijacking our dopamine? Tricking us into self destructive habits while they profit.
I have unabashed excitement for the future because I think this is the inevitable frontier. That pessimism is being non-imaginative.
That is not to say that bad things won't happen or that we won't be challenged by the pace of change, but it is to say that conscious life is the most precious gift the galaxy has bestowed and it's our opportunity and duty to carry it forward.