About Glucose Response
A Glucose Response combines nearby meal logs, activities, and notes to help you understand the overall impact on your glucose.
What is a Glucose Response?
A Glucose Response analyzes all logged food, activities, and notes that occur within proximity of each other. It provides a score from 0 to 10 for the combined effect of these decisions.
Lifestyle decisions don’t happen in a vacuum. A snack, a nap, and a workout each have a metabolic effect on their own, but when these decisions happen close together, their effects combine in ways dependent on one another.
Interpreting your Glucose Response
Scores range from 1 to 10, with 10 being optimal (minimal glucose response) and 1 being poor (high glucose response). In general, aim for minimal, controlled glucose responses.
- 10 – Outstanding: Almost no glucose response increase
- 8 – Good: Minimal personal glucose response
- 6 – Moderate: Pay attention. Testing alternate configurations may work
- 5 – Poor: High glucose response. Eliminate, minimize, or test alternate configurations
How Glucose Responses are calculated
To calculate your glucose response, Levels looks at two primary factors.
How much your glucose rises following your meal
Levels looks at this through two metrics:
- The maximum height of the glucose rise
- The total rise, or Area Under the Curve (AUC), which reflects both the height of the glucose rise and the length of time your glucose is elevated
Moderate changes in blood sugar are normal and healthy. Big surges or long periods of elevation can indicate you’re consuming sugar faster than your body can use it. Smaller increases therefore earn higher scores.
How quickly your glucose rises
Metabolically-healthy food tends to produce a slow, gentle rise in blood sugar. Carb-rich and processed foods can quickly flood the bloodstream with glucose.
To keep your score high, aim for less steep slopes on your glucose graph.
How food quality affects your score
In addition to glucose dynamics, Levels also considers the quality of the food you log, including its macronutrient and micronutrient content and whether it is highly processed or contains seed oils.
- Meals high in protein, fiber, and healthy fats can blunt glucose rises and help improve metabolic health, which can improve your score
- Meals high in carbohydrates (which drive glucose rise) or unhealthy fats can lower your score
- Foods that are highly processed or contain seed oils can decrease your score
- Foods rich in micronutrients such as vitamins and minerals can boost your score
These factors minimally impact your final glucose response:
- The maximum change you can get from macros is ±1 point
- The maximum change you can get from ingredient quality is -0.6 points
How Levels defines a glucose spike
The Levels app labels a spike when:
- Your glucose exceeds 109 mg/dL
- The rise from the start of the spike to the peak is +30 mg/dL
Why didn’t I get a Glucose Response?
This is typically related to:
- The log is an exercise or a note only, without a meal
- The log contains a strenuous exercise log
- If an exercise is marked as strenuous, the entire Glucose Response won’t be calculated
- You’re experiencing connection issues, which can result in data gaps
- If you notice gaps in your data during this time, check out our troubleshooting articles here.
Why did the same meal score differently?
There are several reasons this can happen:
- The glucose response algorithm can have a small difference since scores are rounded up or down to the nearest whole number
- Additional factors such as sleep quality, previous activity, hormones, and more can contribute to glucose stability at a particular meal
Best practices for improving your Glucose Response
Glucose Response can help you run simple experiments by adding or removing different variables to see how they affect your overall metabolic and glucose responses.
For instance, eating pizza and then napping will likely produce a different glucose response than eating pizza and walking.
Need help? Contact support at support@levels.com.