Dr Penny Figtree graduated from the University of Sydney in 1993 with first class honours. With over 20 years in general practice she has now decided to focus on weight loss and diabetes.
This decision was made after seeing the power of a low carbohydrate diet to help people lose weight and for some to even reverse diabetes. Dr Figtree had previously tried to help patients using various diets such as low fat diets, Optifast, the 5:2 fast but nothing really worked. In the end she would just say “as long as you are not gaining weight then that’s great”. Then Dr. Figtree read a book called “Always Hungry” By Professor David Ludwig where he explained the INSULIN CARBOHYDRATE MODEL OF OBESITY.
Dr. Figtree has now been practising low carb medicine for several years. She describes this as the most rewarding part of her career, stopping medications and patients feeling well.
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20 responses to “Dr. Penny Figtree – ‘Continuous Glucose Monitors in Healthy People’”
Wait .. After Drs Berry, Baker, Salad-ino we now have a Dr Figtree as well? Who is making this s* up? It’s about time for Dr Ribeye to enter the low carb realms. 😁
What makes you think that old people like me aren’t healthy? I’m close but not quite. But older people are sometimes much healthier than the super young.
I wore a CGM for 10 days last month. Same effect as you had with the bowl of oatmeal. Great video. Thank you!
“heathy” people. For now Im done with my CGM (Libre 3), due to its huge inaccuracy (way low or way high deviation from a finger prick). Granted one day they will be much better. With my insurance I I paid $75 for two. Previously Type 2. Will low carb and eating right, I got into the low 5’s A1c. In the states you have to have a prescription. Think about that, you need permission to monitor your blood. Insane! Made me furious. They should be OTC and would probably cost $10 each. It did help me see the need to strip bread and other toxic carbs out of my diet.
I’m a healthy, lean 61 yo F, eating meat forward low carb, though also consume whole grains (organically sourced, heritage) – 99% of what I consume I make from scratch. I display no symptoms of high or low blood sugar. I’d like to continue this path of health and I believe a CGM, worn once or twice a year to gather N=1 data is valuable. I don’t see anything unethical about doing so — if anything, a Doctor saying it is makes me wonder at their bias and motivations — ‘don’t help healthy or even borderline (and undiagnosed) people take charge of their health or I’ll go broke’ — Having the education of how to interpret etc. by Dr. Figtree is vital.
What about people who are pumping out a ton of insulin causing blood sugar readings to appear normal. Or will the glucose monitor pick up the pre insulin glucose spike?
Great talk. If insulin levels are what we really need to watch, who’s going to develop a continuous insulin monitor?
If you are in ketosis will 5 grams of carbs in cofee with milk spike blood sugar and take you out of ketosis?
“Strike me down, and I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.”
– Dr. Penny Figtree
subsidised CGM for type 1 but not for T2 insulin dependent who are basically a type 1
That was a great lecture, thank you. 😊
Very informative. Thanks! 👍
Convinced me and I am watching from Bangkok. Here there a gazillion Chinese and Indian knock offs with the UltraHuman ring very popular because of its app- its all about the trends as Doctor Penny said.
I did this 3 weeks ago using the Free Style Libre 2 CGM for 14 days and saw that I had episodes glucose dips while I slept. I thought I was healthy but found out I had to make more lifestyle modifications to level my glucose readings. It was a very interesting experiment. Definitely recommend for anyone who’s interested in understanding the impact of food.
She said there is a massive discount atm $15 or $32.10 for 14 days at this time is awesome. Pick it up before it goes back to full price again.
I tried with the Freestyle 2 (given for free as trial) and 3. There are YouTubers reviewing them, if you need guidance between various types.
I’m not diabetic but in a continuous struggle with body weight. I’ve learned some interesting things, wearing them during December’s holiday feasting. For example, a bad meal (hypercaloric and high carb) can cause blood sugar spikes and lows even 12 hours later i.e. it takes at least a 16 hours fast to clear the “damage”. Funny also how physical activity, even in fasted condition, causes glucose to rise, as dr. Figtree says at 6:30. Never had low episodes because of too much training in fasted condition, I guess this is a sign that I am quite well fat-adapted. OTOH, if I stick to my routine of IF and LC, then glucose monitoring becomes kind of boring/useless, days on end between 80 and 110, with the maximum around 7AM. To be noted, almost always (even in ultra-steady state) the CGM would read 8-12% less than the finger stick (I used them for calibration).
They are expensive like hell (5€/day) but I think they should be used by non-diabetic people too, at least occasionally, along with HOMA-IR testing, to spot insulin resistance early on and to learn how food and activity affects blood sugar.
Maintaining good metabolic health may seem to be a journey of a thousand miles but is as easy as avoiding refined carbs, sugars, seed oils and adding with any amount of active lifestyle. You will gain traction as you see positive results.
Is this discount only on the freestyle libre website? I cant see any results of that price from pharmacies when I search
My experience with Freestyle Libre is very poor quality control. Too many break when applied and, particularly, consistently read too low. Between a 20% ERROR RATE (!!! utterly irresponsible) , faulty sensors and the ones that dont apply properly … i wouldnt recommend them to anyone until they fix the problem
I’m not young but I must be pretty healthy. My glucose is typically quite low.