January's Noosheen Hashemi on Preventing Diabetes by Promoting Gut Health

<p>There are many causes for diabetes—chronicallly high blood sugar—but there’s also a growing list of ways to prevent it, or manage it once it starts. Wearable technologies like continuous glucose monitors or CGMs are high on that list. These devices have tiny needles that penetrate the skin and measure glucose levels in the interstitial fluid between cells. They can send that data to a smartphone, where apps made by a variety of companies can record it and analyze it.</p><p>January.ai is one such company, and co-founder and CEO Noosheen Hashemi joined Harry on the show back in July of 2021. It turns out that the same foods can have different effects on the blood glucose levels of different individuals, and January’s app starts off using live CGM data to study those patterns using machine learning algorithms. Then it can start making predictions about a user's future blood glucose levels, even after they stop wearing a CGM. That can help them make smarter decisions about what, when, or how much to eat, or how much they need to exercise after eating.</p><p>January’s main goal is not to treat diabetes but actually to prevent it from arising in the first place in the tens of millions of people who have signs of pre<i>-</i>diabetes. Now Hashemi has helped to launch a second business, Eden's, that helps with that goal by promoting better gut health. The company makes a nutritional supplement that provides a blend of polyphenols, probiotics, and prebiotics to help improve the function of the bacteria that call your large intestine home. </p><p>Probiotics, which live organisms introduced to change the makeup of your gut microbiome. Prebiotics are non-digestible substances that are fermented by beneficial bacteria like <i>bifidobacteria</i> and <i>lactobacillus</i>, breaking them down into useful nutrients like short-chain fatty acids. Altogether, the Eden’s blend is designed to keep your gut microbiomes happy, which can have the useful side effect of helping to keep your blood glucose steady. Harry talked with Hashemi