New Study: Real-World Effectiveness of Glucose-Guided Eating Using the Data-Driven Fasting App

I’m thrilled to share some exciting news: our new paper has just been published!

This is the first real-world study of glucose-guided eating using the Data-Driven Fasting (DDF) app, and the results show that this simple approach can be both effective and sustainable.

Why Glucose-Guided Eating?

Most diet programs revolve around calories, macros, or rigid meal timing. But as anyone who’s tried knows, strict rules are hard to follow in real life.

The DDF approach is different. Instead of focusing on what you eat, it helps you decide WHAT to eat and WHAT to eat — guided by your own blood glucose levels

Think of it like a fuel gauge for your metabolism:

• If your glucose is high ? your body still has fuel onboard. Wait a little longer.
• If your glucose is low ? your body needs energy. Time to eat.

This puts the power back in your hands, helping you tune into your body’s true hunger signals.

Study Design

We analysed data from 6,197 adults who logged at least two days of pre-meal glucose checks in the DDF app since 2021.

• Time frame: first 30 days of use
• Data collected: glucose readings, hunger ratings, weight entries, and app engagement
• Goal: to evaluate how people actually use the app in the real world, and what outcomes they achieve

Key Findings

1. Strong Engagement

People really used the app:

• Median usage: 19 days out of 30
• Glucose entries: 52 per person
• Weight entries: 7 per person
• App interactions: ~2x per day

? This shows that glucose-guided eating is practical — not just another theory that falls apart outside the lab.

2. Hunger Follows Glucose

One of the most exciting results: hunger scores moved in sync with glucose levels.

• For every 1 mmol/L increase in glucose, hunger dropped by 0.22 points (on a 5-point scale).
• In other words, people learned to “trust their fuel gauge.”

3. Real Weight Loss in Just 30 Days

Across all BMI groups, people lost weight — even in such a short window:

• Normal weight: –0.7 kg
• Overweight: –1.0 kg
• Obese: –1.2 kg

Among those who used the app consistently for four weeks, weight loss was nearly double.

4. Glucose Improvements Where It Matters Most

The biggest improvements in fasting glucose were seen in people who needed it most:

• Normal baseline: stable (+0.11 mmol/L)
• Prediabetes: –0.14 mmol/L
• Diabetes: –0.50 mmol/L

This shows the potential of DDF as a practical tool for metabolic health and diabetes management.

Why This Matters

Most people don’t want to weigh food, track every calorie, or memorize complicated macros. DDF provides:

? Personalized guidance — your own glucose dictates when to eat
? Simplicity — no calorie counting required
? Real-world results — thousands of people lost weight and improved glucose in 30 days

And importantly, the improvements were safest where they matter most: those with elevated glucose saw reductions, while people already in the healthy range remained stable.

Shout Outs

Shout to my coauthors, Michelle Jospe, Melyssa Roy and Susan Schembre!  After five years of guiding thousands of people through this process in our Glucose Signals/Data Driven Fasting Challenges, it’s a thrill to see this in the published literature, finally!  

And of course, thank you to the tens of thousands of Optimisers in our Optimising Nutrition community for showing how this theory works in practice. This is a win for all of us, showing that simple, data-driven approaches — guided by our bodies’ own signals — can truly make a difference.

Read the Full Study

For those who want to dive into the details, you can read the full paper here:
? PubMed Link