Interesting. Complicated. Two things humans like! Yet consistent dietary, sleep, and light management practices will smooth glucose levels without the guesswork, which GPT helped with, in this case. Metabolic health can be so simple and accessible. 🙏
Do you think this sort of interaction helps people learn if they are doing it with some of their own data? Can ask questions without fear or sensitivity to taking doctors time?
I’m sure AI will become a very useful tool for metabolic health, but reading its responses to you, my sense is that ChatGPT is not ready. When it comes to metabolic health, today, most doctors are not ready, either.
So it makes sense for patients to seek and rely on tools outside the existing healthcare system.
Right now, I think using CGM’s for at least two weeks is an excellent way to identify glucose patterns.
Companies like Levels and Nutrisense, which offer CGM’s + coaching can be helpful, too (Continuous Ketone Monitors would be a dream, but none is available in the US right now). However, to my knowledge they stay away from coaching people about those habits which induce ketosis – a healing metabolic state which can either be sustained or cycled into and out of. It’s a natural state for humans to be in versus the never-ending sugar overdose which modern life has become (to borrow from Jordan Vidal on X).
Some excellent human-intelligence options that incorporate technology, patient agency, and community are demonstrating success outside the traditional doctor’s appointment framework (links not allowed? Please search these promising initiatives):
1) Toward Health – I hope anyone who sees this will explore the website, including its research paper published in Frontiers, authored by MD’s and scientists your readers might recognize, including Nick Norwitz, Nina Teicholz, and others.
2) Dr. Stephen Hussey’s practice, which includes an on-line community component: Resource Your Health. He recommends a diet that supports metabolic health, but emphasizes that other elements of life contribute to vital health as well. To quote from Dr. Hussey’s book, ‘Pain Sense’ (p. 252):
'We need to replace the hyperrealities of modern life with the only things we can be sure are real…the only things that humans, and all life on Earth, have known since life began. We need real sunlight, real nature sounds, real food, real contact with the Earth, real authenticity in relationships, real movement, real native electromagnetic fields, etc. Some of these may be harder than others to accomplish, especially with what modern society demands of us in order to be successful and functional in today’s world. Rediscovering these real things shows how modern-day conventional wisdom sets a poor example of what is really out there, what happiness and satisfaction is really possible in life.'
When we consider these elements, many of us realize we are impoverished. But many of us, across all socioeconomic circumstances, have a strong foundation upon which to build: family, community, access to nature via public parks, a sense of purpose. When we explicitly affirm these elements as critical to our health, and add a proper human diet (see Dr. Ken Berry and the PHD community) and exercise, we find that vital health is within reach.
My friends and colleagues at the non-profit, Metabolic Revolution, are seeking funding for a pilot program implement this approach in a hospital setting.
Anyone interested in donating, please respond to me here, or to MR’s Executive Director, Cherie St. Arnauld at cherie@metabolicrevolution.org.
Amazing post Carter. As a physician and exercise physiologist, I’m so happy people are experimenting with these tools with their data. As I physician I’m doing the same, both for my data and the patients I see (and yes I’m using a protected version.) The output is uncanny and many times beyond impressive, but it does make lots of mistakes that sound extremely convincing. It’s almost as if ChatGPT wants to please the person putting the info in and tell them what they want to hear. Despite these weaknesses, the technology is only going to improve. I’m going to share a personal Substack on Friday about my journey with cardiovascular risk and how I used ChatGPT Deep Research for my ultimate decision maker.
Carter, like you, I track around 30 health and wellness indicators—biomarkers, habits, moods, you name it. And I actively apply about 30 upstream interventions—everything from cold immersion and nutrition to breathwork and light exposure. Every quarter or so, I reassess and swap out upstream levers depending on what the downstream data tells me.
But here’s the honest question I’ve been asking myself lately: when does deep tracking become a distraction? When does it slip from being insightful into becoming a form of analysis-paralysis—almost like an OCD binge dressed up as optimization?
What if I narrowed the focus—just tracked a few high-impact KPIs that still move the needle meaningfully, but with far less effort and mental bandwidth?
Is there a sweet spot—a minimum effective dose—for personal data? And if so, what are those few indicators that actually give the clearest window into my health and trajectory?
That is what we need to answer for others. Notional AI should be able to take a range of those inputs and narrow down what matters or take the collective of the backround contrails and use an agent to monitor them for us.
That’s it. In fact, Healthiest Humans was born for this very reason—to simplify the path to optimal health by shifting the focus from constant intervention to intentional design.
What I’ve come to realize is that it’s not the tracking itself that trips people up. It’s the environment—the built surroundings and the ingrained conditions within them—that so often sabotage progress. People fall back into old patterns not because they lack willpower or data, but because the environment is working against them.
That’s why my focus lately has been on a concept I call “Home as Health.” Instead of just layering on more interventions, I help individuals shift their physical and behavioral environments—because when the conditions around you support health, the outcomes follow more naturally. It’s about designing your daily life to work for you, not against you.
BTW, because I’m so deeply embedded at the intersection of Insurance (PBMs), MDs (clinicians), Food, and Drug, it's crystal clear WHY a tectonic shift is needed, in fact, happening.
Interesting. Complicated. Two things humans like! Yet consistent dietary, sleep, and light management practices will smooth glucose levels without the guesswork, which GPT helped with, in this case. Metabolic health can be so simple and accessible. 🙏
Do you think this sort of interaction helps people learn if they are doing it with some of their own data? Can ask questions without fear or sensitivity to taking doctors time?
I’m sure AI will become a very useful tool for metabolic health, but reading its responses to you, my sense is that ChatGPT is not ready. When it comes to metabolic health, today, most doctors are not ready, either.
So it makes sense for patients to seek and rely on tools outside the existing healthcare system.
Right now, I think using CGM’s for at least two weeks is an excellent way to identify glucose patterns.
Companies like Levels and Nutrisense, which offer CGM’s + coaching can be helpful, too (Continuous Ketone Monitors would be a dream, but none is available in the US right now). However, to my knowledge they stay away from coaching people about those habits which induce ketosis – a healing metabolic state which can either be sustained or cycled into and out of. It’s a natural state for humans to be in versus the never-ending sugar overdose which modern life has become (to borrow from Jordan Vidal on X).
Some excellent human-intelligence options that incorporate technology, patient agency, and community are demonstrating success outside the traditional doctor’s appointment framework (links not allowed? Please search these promising initiatives):
1) Toward Health – I hope anyone who sees this will explore the website, including its research paper published in Frontiers, authored by MD’s and scientists your readers might recognize, including Nick Norwitz, Nina Teicholz, and others.
2) Dr. Stephen Hussey’s practice, which includes an on-line community component: Resource Your Health. He recommends a diet that supports metabolic health, but emphasizes that other elements of life contribute to vital health as well. To quote from Dr. Hussey’s book, ‘Pain Sense’ (p. 252):
'We need to replace the hyperrealities of modern life with the only things we can be sure are real…the only things that humans, and all life on Earth, have known since life began. We need real sunlight, real nature sounds, real food, real contact with the Earth, real authenticity in relationships, real movement, real native electromagnetic fields, etc. Some of these may be harder than others to accomplish, especially with what modern society demands of us in order to be successful and functional in today’s world. Rediscovering these real things shows how modern-day conventional wisdom sets a poor example of what is really out there, what happiness and satisfaction is really possible in life.'
When we consider these elements, many of us realize we are impoverished. But many of us, across all socioeconomic circumstances, have a strong foundation upon which to build: family, community, access to nature via public parks, a sense of purpose. When we explicitly affirm these elements as critical to our health, and add a proper human diet (see Dr. Ken Berry and the PHD community) and exercise, we find that vital health is within reach.
My friends and colleagues at the non-profit, Metabolic Revolution, are seeking funding for a pilot program implement this approach in a hospital setting.
Anyone interested in donating, please respond to me here, or to MR’s Executive Director, Cherie St. Arnauld at cherie@metabolicrevolution.org.
Submitted with gratitude. Thanks for asking.
Amazing post Carter. As a physician and exercise physiologist, I’m so happy people are experimenting with these tools with their data. As I physician I’m doing the same, both for my data and the patients I see (and yes I’m using a protected version.) The output is uncanny and many times beyond impressive, but it does make lots of mistakes that sound extremely convincing. It’s almost as if ChatGPT wants to please the person putting the info in and tell them what they want to hear. Despite these weaknesses, the technology is only going to improve. I’m going to share a personal Substack on Friday about my journey with cardiovascular risk and how I used ChatGPT Deep Research for my ultimate decision maker.
Carter, like you, I track around 30 health and wellness indicators—biomarkers, habits, moods, you name it. And I actively apply about 30 upstream interventions—everything from cold immersion and nutrition to breathwork and light exposure. Every quarter or so, I reassess and swap out upstream levers depending on what the downstream data tells me.
But here’s the honest question I’ve been asking myself lately: when does deep tracking become a distraction? When does it slip from being insightful into becoming a form of analysis-paralysis—almost like an OCD binge dressed up as optimization?
What if I narrowed the focus—just tracked a few high-impact KPIs that still move the needle meaningfully, but with far less effort and mental bandwidth?
Is there a sweet spot—a minimum effective dose—for personal data? And if so, what are those few indicators that actually give the clearest window into my health and trajectory?
That is what we need to answer for others. Notional AI should be able to take a range of those inputs and narrow down what matters or take the collective of the backround contrails and use an agent to monitor them for us.
That’s it. In fact, Healthiest Humans was born for this very reason—to simplify the path to optimal health by shifting the focus from constant intervention to intentional design.
What I’ve come to realize is that it’s not the tracking itself that trips people up. It’s the environment—the built surroundings and the ingrained conditions within them—that so often sabotage progress. People fall back into old patterns not because they lack willpower or data, but because the environment is working against them.
That’s why my focus lately has been on a concept I call “Home as Health.” Instead of just layering on more interventions, I help individuals shift their physical and behavioral environments—because when the conditions around you support health, the outcomes follow more naturally. It’s about designing your daily life to work for you, not against you.
BTW, because I’m so deeply embedded at the intersection of Insurance (PBMs), MDs (clinicians), Food, and Drug, it's crystal clear WHY a tectonic shift is needed, in fact, happening.