Quantified Self as Concierge Service
CGMs, microbiome tests, and health anxiety
Continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), designed for diabetes management, have become wellness products for healthy people through services like Levels and Zoe. Add microbiome testing, continuous heart rate variability tracking, and dozens of blood biomarkers, and the "quantified self" becomes a comprehensive surveillance system for the worried well. The question: does all this data improve health outcomes, or does it create a new form of health anxiety?
Data Without Evidence
For diabetics, CGMs provide crucial real-time information for managing blood sugar. For healthy people, the data is... data. No clinical trials have demonstrated that CGM use by non-diabetics improves any health outcome. The glucose "spikes" that users learn to fear are normal physiological responses to eating; whether flattening them matters for health is unproven.
Similar questions apply to microbiome tests, which can describe gut bacterial composition but can't yet reliably translate that information into actionable health recommendations supported by evidence.
Why It Matters for Luxury
The quantified self represents the intersection of technology, wellness anxiety, and conspicuous health consumption. Wearing a CGM signals commitment to optimization; the data feels actionable even when the evidence for action is missing. These services sell the experience of taking health seriously, which may or may not correlate with actually being healthier.
News & Coverage
- NPR: Should You Track Blood Sugar With a CGM? — Analysis of whether continuous glucose monitoring benefits non-diabetics and the evidence gap — June 2025
- Dazed: How Glucose Trackers Became a Status Symbol — Cultural analysis of CGMs as wellness status symbols, from Zoe and Lingo to Nutrisense and Levels — March 2024
- Good Housekeeping: Lingo Glucose Monitor Review — Consumer review of Abbott's Lingo CGM for non-diabetics, addressing the question of whether monitoring is \"worth it\" — November 2024
Research
- Sensors: Non-Invasive CGM in Patients Without Diabetes — Systematic review of CGM use for cardiovascular prevention in non-diabetic populations — January 2025