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Prediabetes
Type 2

diaTribe Reviews: Lingo by Abbott

5 Minute Read
Abbott Lingo

Curious about Abbott’s Lingo? So were we.

Lingo is an over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor (CGM) for people without diabetes looking to learn more about their metabolic health. Following Dexcom’s Stelo, Lingo is the second over-the-counter CGM to be approved by the FDA. 

Like other CGM devices, Lingo provides real-time blood sugar data that can provide insights into how factors like food and exercise impact glucose levels. It’s important to note that Lingo is designed to provide insights and provide recommendations for improving metabolic health; it should not be used to manage or diagnose diabetes. 

Disclosure: diaTribe members who tried Lingo do not have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.

Jim Carroll, CEO of diaTribe

Pros: Sleek design, easy to use 

Cons: Unsure how accurate blood sugar data is

Overall thoughts:

I appreciated Lingo's gamified approach as a more accessible way to drive behavior change. While the Stelo app provided useful suggestions for improving glucose control, Lingo stood out with its detailed insights and the simplicity of the "Lingo Count" for tracking blood sugar spikes. This combination resonated with me. My time in range was notably better while using Lingo leaving me to wonder: Had my eating and exercise habits improved due to lessons learned from wearing Stelo, or was Lingo less sensitive to changes in my glucose levels?

Shae Puckett, dStigmatize content manager

Pros: Able to see your full CGM history (not just 24 hours), helpful customer service

Cons: App only available for iPhone, set up was challenging, user interface difficult to read 

Overall thoughts:

A quick disclaimer, I do not live with diabetes and Lingo is not the first CGM I have trialed for this series. Starting Lingo, I entered into the experience with a few more expectations than some of the others I tried. Lingo was more difficult to set up than I had expected. 

It requires that you use the email address you ordered the Lingo with to make your account for the app – there is no other way to create an account. For those hoping to order multiple Lingos to share with family or friends, know that anyone you plan to share with will not be able to create their own account with a different email address and connect their CGM. 

For obvious reasons, I did not want to connect my CGM to my boss’s Lingo account, so we had to work with customer service to solve this. It cost us a few days, and the delay ultimately meant I missed out on the ability to wear multiple CGM brands at once to compare directly. I hope they fix this going forward. 

As an Android user, I wasn’t out of the woods with the setup just yet. I had to use the app on my partner’s phone because Lingo is only compatible with the iPhone, so several times a day I was running up to his office to check my notifications and numbers. 

Once using the app, I noticed some immediate pros and cons of how the data was presented. I loved that you could scroll back as far as you wanted in your CGM history to compare data points across days and weeks. The lack of this function was one of my biggest cons with Stelo. When it came to making changes, I enjoyed that I was able to make one or two tweaks to my meals on one day, then scroll back to the previous day and compare the results. 

That functionality made it a lot easier to make small changes and understand exactly which factors impacted my blood sugar levels and which factors didn’t (for example, timing was a big factor for me, while stress didn’t seem to be…probably because I am stressed all the time). 

I can see how this functionality would be even more helpful for someone living with prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, or gestational diabetes. That level of information is going to help people make much more meaningful changes than only being able to view the most recent 24 hours before the data disappears.

While the data itself was helpful, I struggled to read anything on the app. The Lingo app uses midtone blue and purple backgrounds with very thin white lines and tiny white font for the CGM graphs. It feels like the aesthetic was prioritized over ensuring the data is accessible; I would have benefited from larger lines and circles to denote specific data points, or bolder fonts with more contrast. 

I still think this tool has a lot of value to add and I hope it can help improve accessibility and affordability of CGM and reach the populations who need it most.

Anna Brooks, managing editor of diaTribe Learn:

Pros: Well-designed, easy to use

Cons: Didn’t find it helped with other parameters promised like sleep 

Overall thoughts:

After trying the Stelo, I was very curious about how Lingo compared. I probably should have read the setup instructions a little more carefully before I applied the sensor, but like my colleague Shae, I also had problems getting Lingo set up. I didn’t realize you needed the email you used to order Lingo to use the product; since our boss had ordered these for us to try (he was wearing one as well), we couldn’t all use his email. I spent several days going back and forth with customer service while wearing my sensor but not being able to use the app. In the end, I had to order (and pay for) a new Lingo, meaning a whole sensor was wasted. 

However, once I was all set up, I enjoyed using Lingo. The app is aesthetically pleasing with soothing purple tones and was really easy to use. On top of providing blood sugar data, there were short videos and health tutorials that I think would be helpful for people new to learning about metabolic health. One of the first things the app asks is what your health goals are: boosting energy, managing hunger, improving mood, better sleep, or staying focused. Because I have chronic sleep issues, that was the goal I picked. Maybe it would be different for someone experiencing early blood glucose issues, but the app didn’t teach me anything about sleep; perhaps I have the advantage because I work at diaTribe, but I already expected to see my blood sugar go down as I slept and then trend upwards in the early morning (the dawn phenomenon). 

Sleep aside, the app was helpful for tracking my glucose levels and helping me understand which foods caused slow rises and which foods caused spikes (probably should lay off the Redbull…). There is a spot to record what you ate and when you exercised during the day, and unlike the Stelo, you’re able to go back and view past data, which was very helpful for observing weekly time in range trends. I will say, I’m not sure how accurate the blood glucose data for these OTC CGMs is; on average, my blood glucose was higher with the Stelo compared to the Lingo, even though I maintained roughly the same diet and activity levels while wearing both. I’m aware that blood sugar changes every minute and there are so many factors that affect it (42 factors, in fact), but it seemed odd to me that I was almost in the prediabetes range for Stelo while I was much lower with the Lingo. 

My final thoughts? I think these devices can be useful for people trying to understand how eating habits impact blood glucose and what sort of lifestyle changes can be made to balance out blood sugar better. But I do worry it can create a false sense that there’s a problem if your blood sugar spikes. I found myself unintentionally withholding food after seeing it caused a spike; for people without diabetes, it’s totally normal for blood sugar to go up and then down – that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat if you see a spike. In the end, I have mixed feelings about these products. While these companies are producing life-changing, even lifesaving, technology for diabetes, I wonder if OTC CGM for people who don’t have blood sugar issues is a waste of time and resources that could be directed toward people with diabetes who need these products more.

Learn more about CGM and diabetes management here: