Google’s New Pixel Watch + Fitbit Air Can Flag Insulin Resistance—Here’s What That Means for Type 2 Diabetes

For years, the promise of wearable technology has been growing: what if your watch could tell you what was happening inside your body before you ever felt a difference? It seems like everything is tracked by tech: body temperature, heart rate, blood sugar levels, blood oxygen levels, menstrual cycles, and now, even changes in insulin resistance.

Google’s new technology is not a glucose monitor, and it does not measure or display blood glucose levels. But for people living with or at risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D), it offers an interesting new glimpse into where wearable technology and artificial intelligence (AI) could be headed next. 

The new feature will be part of Google’s Health Guardian, a collection of tools designed to identify subtle changes in a person’s body. Google says the insulin-resistance feature will initially launch on the new Pixel Watch 5 and Fitbit devices, with additional devices expected to follow in the coming months. 

How will the Pixel watch track something it doesn’t actually measure?

The question is: if Google’s Pixel watch isn’t measuring blood sugar levels, can it still track insulin resistance? The answer, in short, is kind of. That’s because the Pixel watch won’t measure insulin resistance directly. 

Instead, using AI, it will look for patterns in the body that may be associated with changes in how the body responds to insulin. 

The system combines information from multiple sensors, including an accelerometer, barometer, heart-rate sensor and temperature sensor. Google trained its AI model using data from over 100,000 people to identify subtle changes and patterns in the body that relate to changes in insulin resistance. 

Why track insulin resistance? 

Insulin resistance occurs when the body’s cells become less responsive to insulin, requiring the pancreas to produce more insulin to help move glucose from the bloodstream into the cells. 

Insulin resistance can happen for a multitude of reasons, including illness, infection, weight gain, stress, spiking hormones, pregnancy, increased body fat, inflammation, certain medications and inactivity. Insulin resistance may be temporary or long-lasting. But over time, insulin resistance can cause harm to the body and contribute to prediabetes and T2D. The challenge is that people can’t feel their insulin resistance increasing in real time, unlike a blood sugar spike. 

How does the Pixel watch connect behavior to metabolic health?

This is where technology can play a part. For someone living with prediabetes or T2D, Google’s new wearable feature might eventually help them connect the dots between their everyday behaviors and those subtle changes in insulin resistance that they wouldn’t normally feel. 

Unlike an occasional blood sugar check that collects data at a single point in time, a smart device that’s tracking sleep, physical activity, stress, illness and food intake can help identify patterns that contribute to worsening or improving insulin resistance that otherwise wouldn’t be obvious. 

Pixel watch users will be able to look at patterns and then consider making shifts to their lifestyle. Maybe that’s adding a post-meal walk to their routine, or eating more high fiber foods like vegetables. 

It’s not a diabetes diagnostic tool

It’s important to note that this new tool isn’t a diabetes diagnostic tool and is not evidence based or an FDA-approved product. Google states that while the device is meant to monitor trends, it is not for diagnosing or treating insulin resistance, prediabetes or diabetes. If the system detects a shift, users will be encouraged to consider lifestyle changes or to talk with their healthcare provider. 

Importantly, for people already living with diabetes using a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) system, this is not a replacement. Users who already use a CGM can connect that data through Google’s Health Connect platform, but the insulin-resistance feature itself is an indirect measure based on physiological signals, separate from blood sugar alone. 

Google is also integrating Abbott’s Lingo CGM into Google Health, allowing users to gain insights into how factors like meals, exercise,and sleep relate to their blood sugar patterns. 

The goal is to make metabolic health less invisible

Our bodies are complex and always changing. Google’s new tool is meant to bring people more insights effortlessly. 

The goal is to help people understand what’s happening inside their bodies and use that information to make better-informed choices and have more thoughtful conversations with their healthcare providers. This new feature will be available this fall.

Want to learn more about emerging diabetes tools and technology? Read about the latest FDA approvals and gadgets here!