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Continuous Glucose Monitoring

What a continuous glucose monitor actually reveals for someone who doesn't have diabetes, and what the evidence still hasn't settled.

Continuous glucose monitors were built for managing diabetes, but a growing number of people without a diagnosis are wearing them out of curiosity about their own metabolic patterns. That raises a genuinely different question than the one CGMs were designed to answer: not how to manage a disease, but what a glucose curve even means when the underlying control is already normal. The research on that specific, non-diabetic question is newer and thinner than the diabetes-management literature, and worth reading on its own terms.

What your device actually calls this
Scientific measurementInterstitial glucose concentration (mg/dL), with "Time in Range" (percentage of time glucose stays within a target band) as the standard clinical outcome metric used in endocrinology.
DeviceWhat they call itWhat it actually measures
Dexcom SteloDisplays Time in Range directlyThe clinical-standard metric, unmodified, alongside a continuous glucose graph and trend arrows. A user coming from clinical CGM experience sees the same framework they'd already know.
Abbott Lingo"Lingo Score" and "Lingo Counts"Abstracts Time in Range away into a proprietary, gamified metric, not framed around time-in-range at all. A meaningfully different design philosophy: clinical transparency vs. simplified consumer framing.

Device accuracy itself is measured by MARD (Mean Absolute Relative Difference vs. a reference blood glucose value). Reported figures put Lingo and Stelo within a similar range of each other, per manufacturer-adjacent comparison sources, not each company's own published number directly, so treat any specific percentage as approximate until confirmed against each manufacturer's own accuracy statements.

Device measurement accuracy: Established · see the file
How each device actually shows this
Oura Live Dexcom Stelo integration See every device →

Sources: FDA 510(k) clearance records (openFDA), each manufacturer's own product documentation. MARD accuracy figures in wide circulation on comparison sites were not traceable to either manufacturer's own primary published statement during research for this page; treat any specific percentage as approximate. Full device profiles: Dexcom Stelo, Abbott Lingo.

Research Desk · live file
See the full CGM evidence file
Every claim rated Established, Emerging, Uncertain, Insufficient, or Unsupported, with a research log reviewed against new studies on a rolling basis.
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