By Sara Ashley O’Brien
Jan. 26, 2024
What do a Hollywood starlet, an Olympic gold medalist and a Harvard longevity researcher have in common? All of them follow an influencer who has kicked off a health craze known as the Glucose Goddess Method.
Jessie Inchauspé. Photo by IULIA MATEI
More of a philosophy than a diet, the Glucose Goddess approach consists of “hacks” meant to minimize blood-sugar spikes. Proponents say that following its guidance can help people think more clearly, have more energy and reduce cravings. Crucially, the method isn’t about losing weight, says its creator, a French biochemist named Jessie Inchauspé. Followers don’t need to cut out carbs or count points. Instead, they’re advised to consider food groups and the order in which they consume them.
“I’m just taking studies done by scientists across the world and bringing them to the forefront,” said Inchauspé, 31.
Glucose has become the new gluten—a medical sensitivity turned nutritional obsession for the masses. As the diabetes drug Ozempic has upended the old ways of thinking about food, willpower and weight loss, it has also put a spotlight on the importance of regulating blood sugar beyond the treatment of diabetes. That has fueled interest in glucose-management products, from supplements to continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). Health personalities like Inchauspé are spreading the word.
Her so-called hacks include starting meals with vegetables, eating a savory breakfast and putting “clothes”—protein, fat or fiber—on carbs. She also recommends drinking a tablespoon of diluted vinegar a day; consumed before a sweet treat or carb-heavy meal, she said, it can minimize a glucose spike.
Inchauspé has spun the tenets of her method into a Glucose Goddess empire that follows a familiar diet-industry playbook. She has two bestselling books, an Instagram account with 3.2 million followers, an online certification course ($2,499), a recipe club ($4.99 a month) and, in the coming weeks, a video podcast and a supplement ($65 a bottle).
“Honestly, this stuff is not that revolutionary,” Inchauspé said. She’s just found an appealing way to market existing research for the social-media age. “I see myself as a behavior-change encourager,” she said.
Her interest in holistic nutrition came after breaking her back at the age of 19 and struggling with anxiety and depersonalization—feeling disconnected from her physical form. She studied biochemistry at Georgetown University, where she got her master’s, and then joined the DNA-testing company 23andMe. There, she raised her hand to participate in a company study that used CGMs, medical devices developed for diabetics. They are adhesive and contain a tiny needle that goes just beneath the skin.
Inchauspé, who isn’t diabetic, saw a correlation between her glucose spikes and mental health. “It’s like a combination of brain fog, anxiety, feeling out of your body that I had been having since I was a teenager.”
The revelation “completely changed my life,” she said.
She built an app to chart data from her CGM to illustrate for others how foods and behaviors affected her. She absorbed a huge body of research to try to make sense of the numbers. In 2019, she started sharing her findings on Instagram. “I took it upon myself to try to get this information out as much as I could,’” she said.
Six months in, she quit her job and to focus on Glucose Goddess full-time. On her account, she shares charts showing how eating a bowl of red-lentil pasta (big spike) compares to having red lentils on their own (no spike), or how snacking on chocolate cake (another big spike) compares to eating it after a large chicken salad (no spike). The information is based on CGM data and meant to illustrate existing research.
Inchauspé’s books “Glucose Revolution” and “The Glucose Goddess Method” have sold over 400,000 copies in the U.S., according to publisher Simon & Schuster. She said her first advance helped finance her glucose empire and that she has reinvested her earnings in its expansion. Her legion of Instagram followers include Gwyneth Paltrow, Rita Ora, Lily James, Orlando Bloom and Karlie Kloss.
This comes at a time when people are increasingly putting their trust in influencers for information about health, regardless of credentials, and making purchases based on their recommendations.
Laura Bellows, associate professor of Nutritional Science at Cornell University, said some of the studies on blood-glucose levels cited to support Inchauspé’s hacks are based on small sample sizes, and their findings may not apply to a broader population. Bellows said some of the hacks are widely accepted by nutritionists, such as having protein and fat with carbs, while others may overstate what is known about their effectiveness, like the benefits of vinegar. “I would much rather people pay attention to how they feel and how their body is reacting,” she said.
Inchauspé’s supplement, called Anti-Spike, will cost $65 for one bottle or $52 for a monthly subscription. She said it contains mulberry leaf and lemon-peel extracts, antioxidants from green vegetables, and cinnamon. She said that other supplements on the market add ingredients that counteract possible benefits or aren’t supported by science. Supplements are not subject to approval by the Food and Drug Administration.
There’s also a “Glucose Goddess” online-certification program, which Inchauspé recently launched for health and wellness professionals. The online course takes about 20 hours to complete and gives participants access to resources such as meal plan templates to use in their practices. She said the idea is to provide a “more technical” level of information compared to her podcast and social media. Only a “handful” of people have taken it so far, she said.
Inchauspé has been embraced by popular health personalities. Harvard longevity researcher David Sinclair blurbed her first book. Fitness influencer Melissa Wood-Tepperberg and Dr. Mark Hyman, who has been beating the drum about blood sugar for many years, both had her on their podcasts.
“We’re having a cultural zeitgeist shift where sugar is definitely understood to be something that we should be reducing or balancing in our diet,” said Dr. Hyman. But he said, peoples’ responses to these food hacks may vary.
Startups like Levels and Signos are now encouraging the use of CGMs, which require a prescription to obtain, by nondiabetics as wellness or weight-loss tools when paired with their apps. The FDA hasn’t clearly communicated whether this is acceptable or not. The agency declined to comment. Sinclair and Hyman both serve as advisers to Levels.
The companies’ apps, which charge monthly subscription fees in the hundreds, pull in information from CGMs to help people better understand their metabolic health or lose weight. Through these companies, users can connect with doctors to be assessed for a CGM prescription. Levels and Signos say they are both conducting studies on how glucose affects nondiabetic people. Signos says it requires its users to take part in these studies; Levels says it does not.
Signos co-founder and chief executive Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer said the company has benefited from broader attention to blood sugar, in part due to the popularity of drugs like Ozempic. CGM-maker Dexcom said it sells its CGMs wholesale to Signos and Levels for use in clinical trials. It said in a statement that it is “working toward a future where everyone uses or has access to a glucose biosensor.” Abbott, another CGM-maker, said it provides sensors to “a few” companies for use in clinical trials for nondiabetics.
Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and professor of nutrition and medicine at Tufts University, said CGMs can be useful tools for understanding how foods affect glucose levels. But, he said, “if you obsessively follow glucose, you’d miss the harms of fructose and refined protein.” Yes, glucose is an important health marker to pay attention to, Mozaffarian said, but it’s not the only one.
Some of Inchauspé’s advice is up for debate. She tells followers that all sugar is created equal from a molecular standpoint and that she’d rather drink Diet Coke than orange juice. But nutritional experts point out that artificial sweeteners can be harmful in other ways.
Inchauspé has been criticized for her use of CGMs and began distancing herself from the devices in 2022, around the time she was coming out with her first book.
“I got a lot of messages from people who have Type 1 diabetes who said, ‘Jessie, this is so offensive that you would post this as a fashion statement when [I] need this to live.’ So I was like, ‘f—, I never thought about that,’” she said. Now she only wears a monitor about twice a year for a couple of weeks.
Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn said she had been implementing Inchauspé’s hacks for well over a year before testing a CGM to see the data for herself. She saw how changes to the order of what she ate, like having a salad or greens before something sweet, affected her energy.
“I used to get tired after meals,” Vonn said. Now, she said, that doesn’t happen.
Write to Sara Ashley O’Brien at sara.obrien@wsj.com
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