What is Lingo Count? Explained

Glucose levels have been linked to many aspects of health and well-being, including heart health, weight management, energy, and focus.^{2 ,3, 4, 5, 6} Lingo is an everyday biowearable experience consisting of a continuous glucose monitor (CGM), app, and proprietary science-backed content.  

Lingo provides insights into your individual glucose data and your unique response to food, activity, and other lifestyle factors to help you build healthier habits and work towards improved well-being and metabolic health.  

When you apply the Lingo biosensor (an over-the-counter CGM) and connect it to the Lingo app, you’ll see information about Lingo Count. Lingo Count is our approach to help you make sense of the changes in your glucose throughout the day.  

In this article, we’ll explain more about what Lingo Count is, how we calculate this number, and how it’s designed to help you improve your metabolic health. 

How is Lingo Count detected and calculated? 

Glucose fluctuates constantly throughout the day. To help you identify bigger rises in glucose — what we sometimes call glucose spikes — Lingo uses a proprietary algorithm. This algorithm detects these changes in glucose that can occur in response to food, stress, exercise, and other events.  

The algorithm is complex, but generally, fluctuations that stay below 100 mg/dL and don’t rise faster than 20 mg/dL within an hour won’t be detected as a glucose spike. Fluctuations that peak above the healthy glucose range (140 mg/dL) typically are detected as a glucose spike.  

When your glucose spikes, Lingo retrospectively assigns a numeric Lingo Count value based on the size and duration of the spike. It considers two primary factors: the peak glucose value (how high the spike goes) and the duration (how long glucose remains elevated above pre-spike levels).  

A higher peak and longer duration of a glucose spike result in a higher Lingo Count. Conversely, reducing the peak value or shortening the duration of the spike will lower the Lingo Count assigned. You might think of Lingo Count as similar to the area under the curve of a glucose spike: it reflects how much glucose your body is exposed to and for how long. 

Lingo prompts you to reflect on what may have caused the spike and log it in the app, whether that be food or drink, exercise, or another event like a stressful situation or a rise in glucose that sometimes occurs when we wake up in the morning.  

Different types of glucose spikes 

Not all glucose spikes are the same. Spikes often come from the food and drinks we consume. Other times, glucose rises as we tap into stored fuel to power working muscles during exercise. This kind of spike is completely normal, and even beneficial.   

Regular exercise can help lower overall glucose levels.^{7, 8, 9} For Lingo members with average glucose above 117 mg/dl, 30 minutes of exercise was linked to lower glucose responses to high-carb food like pizza, helping them spend more time in the healthy range^1.  

Spikes that result from exercise don’t count towards Lingo Count. If you log exercise in the Lingo app or have Lingo synced to a wearable device like an Apple Watch (which will automatically log your activity in Lingo), the exercise-related spikes will be excluded from your Lingo Count. So, keep moving your body, fuel those hardworking muscles, and don’t forget to log your exercise! 

Every once in a while, glucose readings may be inaccurate due to consistent pressure on the biosensor (like if you lie on it) or extreme temperatures. Once the biosensor starts reading normally again, you may notice an inaccurate spike or Lingo Count. If this happens, or you don’t think a spike was accurate, you can manually remove the Lingo Count from the app.  

Lingo Count from each spike in a 24-hour period are added together to give you a total daily Lingo Count. 

How is your personal Lingo Count target determined? 

Lingo assigns you a personal Lingo Count daily target, supplemented by daily insights and challenges in the app. When you first start Lingo, this target is based on the total daily Lingo Count we see for many people your age. 

After your first week, you may get a new suggested target in your weekly snapshot based on your personal glucose data. This target can adjust week to week as Lingo assesses your unique glucose data. You can manually adjust your Lingo Count target at any time in your profile on the “You” tab in the app.  

Since research shows that less glucose exposure (smaller spikes and lower glucose levels) over time is good for many aspects of health and well-being,^{2, 3, 4, 10, 11} Lingo suggests a target at the lower end of what’s typical for you – and doesn’t suggest something you’ve never achieved before, so it’s within your reach.  

The Lingo app is designed to encourage lifestyle changes that result in less glucose exposure and a lower Lingo Count over time.  

Glucose spikes are normal, and the goal of Lingo is not to eliminate glucose spikes entirely. Instead, Lingo helps you clearly identify when spikes happen and brings awareness to your unique glucose responses.  

Armed with these personal insights, you can start to notice patterns, like specific triggers that lead to spikes as well as the healthy habits that contribute to fewer, smaller, or shorter duration spikes. Lowering these can help keep you within the healthy glucose range and also help to support you feeling your best.  

How can Lingo Count help improve metabolic health? 

Total glucose exposure throughout the day and over time is an indicator of metabolic health. We often measure this with a blood test like Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) or track it over time with average glucose and other metrics from a CGM.  

One of the main factors that contributes to overall glucose exposure is postprandial glucose (the amount of glucose in your blood after you eat).¹²  

While you may be aware that consistently high glucose over time can put you at risk for things like type 2 diabetes and heart disease,^{2, 3, 4, 13, 14} you might not know how glucose spikes and subsequent crashes can impact how you feel day to day. This can influence things like hunger and cravings, energy, mood, focus, and sleep.¹⁰ 

Noticing what is linked to accruing Lingo Count can help you better assess how your choices and environment are connected to your glucose patterns. You may start to link specific behaviors, like eating certain foods or experiencing a bad night of sleep, with glucose spikes.  

Over time, you may also notice that you feel best when your spikes stay below a certain Lingo Count or within a daily target that works well for you.   

These insights can help you make more informed choices for better health, such as adjusting mealtimes, swapping ultra-processed high-carb snacks for whole-foods based options with more protein, or going for a walk after you eat.  

All of these behaviors can lead to improved glucose, which in turn supports better mood and focus, longer sleep, fewer cravings, and more sustained energy.^{5, 6, 15, 16, 17}

Lingo members who reduce their Lingo Count over the course of using six sensors (about three months) lower their average glucose levels and spend less time above the healthy glucose range¹ – both of which show improvements in measures of metabolic health.    

A final note from Lingo 

Lingo Count is our approach to simplifying your personal glucose data and is unique to you. With insights, tips, and challenges from Lingo, your Lingo Count can be lowered over time as you establish healthier habits to manage your glucose spikes.  

Using Lingo to help detect the actions that contribute to your Lingo Count throughout the day can help you gain clarity of your own glucose patterns. This can help you to make actionable changes to help optimize your overall health and well-being. 

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