The recommended first-line therapy in type 2 diabetes (T2D) is lifestyle modification. In many patients, such interventions fail, and disease progresses inexorably to medication requirement. A potential reason for the failure of standard nutritional interventions is the use of generic dietary advice, with no personalisation to account for differences in the effect of food on blood glucose between different individuals. Another is the lack of instant feedback on the impact of dietary modification on glycaemic control, which supports sustained behaviour change. The use of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) may help address both these shortcomings. We conducted an observational study to explore how personalised nutritional information impacts glycaemic control and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) of well-being. Free-living people with T2D eating their normal diet were provided with personalised nutritional recommendations by state-registered nutritionists based on the CGM-enabled analysis of individual post-prandial glycaemic responses (PPGRs). Participants demonstrated considerable inter-individual differences in PPGRs, reductions in post-prandial incremental area under the curve (iAUC) and daytime AUC, and improvements in energy levels, ability to concentrate, and other PROMs. These results suggest a role for personalised nutritional recommendations based on individual-level understanding of PPGRs in the non-pharmaceutical management of T2D.
Keywords: continuous glucose monitoring; digital tools; personalised nutrition; type 2 diabetes.