The Future Normal · Part 1
Metabolic Monitoring
What if tracking your glucose level became as normal as counting your steps?
What if tracking your glucose level became as normal as counting your steps?
The Trend
Most wearables measure heart rate, a superficial and lagging signal, and most people cannot act on the data anyway. Continuous glucose monitors, food recognition and AI coaching together turn vague health advice into specific feedback about what a particular meal just did to your energy. In the future normal, it will be much harder to feign ignorance about that guilty treat, and the constant nudges will compound into better metabolic health over years.
The Instigator
Founded in 2019 by Phil Southerland, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at seven months old and told he would not see his 25th birthday, then became a professional cyclist to prove otherwise. Using early continuous glucose monitors, his all-diabetic team won the 3,000-mile Race Across America four times. Supersapiens brought that real-time insight to non-diabetic athletes, and although the company halted operations in March 2024 the category kept growing, with the CGM market forecast to rise from $6.1 billion in 2021 to $16.3 billion by 2030.
Imagining The Future Normal
What if AI could predict your glucose responses before a meal?
January AI’s alternative solution to expensive hardware devices involves a short monitoring period, paired with a model that can analyze photos of your planned meal to forecast your glucose reaction. How will having these insights change people’s relationship with food, or those who sell and prepare it?
Will metabolic monitoring become mandatory at work?
It’s no longer science fiction to imagine AI schedulers arranging high-stakes meetings when people are at their metabolic peak. As tracking is increasingly built into our daily lives, it will present us with new questions about privacy and autonomy in the workplace … and how far we (or our employers) are willing to go in the quest for more productivity.
What will the backlash to the overquantified self look like?
“Intuitive eating” advocates have already positioned themselves against constant biometric tracking, and we are seeing signs of fatigue from consumers at the relentless tracking of every metric and behavior. It’s likely that “going sensor-free” will become a lifestyle statement similar to digital detoxing or slow food, and that will create opportunities in itself.
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