What a Wearable Taught A Nutritional Therapist About Preventative Health

By Alexandra Cortina

I arrived at the Royal Society of Medicine curious whether I would genuinely learn something new.

As a nutritional therapist and Director at BANT, I spend much of my time in clinic thinking about the foundations of health: nutrition, nervous system regulation, sleep, movement, emotional wellbeing and the complex relationship between physiology, behaviour and emotional wellbeing. I was interested in whether wearable technology could deepen our understanding of these interconnected systems in a meaningful way, rather than simply add more data to an already overloaded world.

Yet by the end of the BANT NED Science Forum on 12 May 2026, I found myself ordering a continuous glucose monitor that very evening.

The event, held at the Royal Society of Medicine, brought together practitioners exploring the growing role of wearable technology and at home health tracking in preventative healthcare. We heard about continuous glucose monitoring, heart rate variability, sleep, recovery, temperature tracking and the ways these tools may help us understand patterns in the body long before illness fully develops.

What struck me most was not the technology itself, but the conversation around it.

This was not biohacking culture. It was not about perfection, optimisation or turning ourselves into machines. Instead, the discussions centred around awareness, prevention and understanding the subtle physiological patterns that shape how we feel long before illness fully develops.

As practitioners, many of us see clients whose blood tests come back “normal” while they continue to experience exhaustion, anxiety, disrupted sleep, cravings, weight gain, low mood or a growing sense that something feels off. Particularly for women living busy, often stressful lives, these shifts can emerge gradually and quietly, often dismissed as stress, ageing or simply modern life.

Wearables are beginning to offer something interesting in this space: feedback. Not diagnosis. Not certainty. But feedback.

A continuous glucose monitor, for example, can reveal how differently individuals respond to the same foods, levels of stress, sleep disruption or exercise. Two people can eat the exact same breakfast and experience completely different glucose responses. Other wearables may offer insight into sleep quality, heart rate variability, recovery, temperature shifts and the cumulative load of stress on the body. Poor sleep or emotional stress alone can create measurable physiological changes, even when diet has not changed at all.

What this is really pointing towards is the growing issue of insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction within the body, often developing quietly over many years before disease fully emerges. A continuous glucose monitor gives us a window into how the body is managing blood sugar in real time and how daily habits, stress, sleep and food choices may be influencing that process.

What has been most useful, even after just one week of wearing a CGM, is seeing how responsive the body can be to relatively small shifts in behaviour. Many of these were things I had already understood intuitively and used in clinic: prioritising protein, walking after meals, improving sleep, reducing stress and becoming more aware of how the timing and composition of meals shapes blood sugar responses. Seeing this reflected in real time has made the connection far more tangible.

As someone working increasingly at the intersection of nutrition, mental health and nervous system regulation, this feels particularly important.

We are finally beginning to understand that the body does not operate in isolated systems. Blood sugar regulation, cortisol, inflammation, digestion, hormones, mood and energy are deeply interconnected. The body is constantly communicating with us, but many of us have lost touch with how to interpret those signals.

What surprised me after starting to use the CGM myself was not dramatic glucose spikes or alarming data, but rather how much awareness it created around patterns I might otherwise have ignored. I began noticing the impact of stress, timing of meals, sleep quality and even the pace of my day in a more immediate and embodied way.

In many ways, the technology became less about numbers and more about reconnection.

For women navigating busy, often stressful lives, this area is becoming increasingly relevant. Hormonal shifts, poor sleep, stress and the constant demands of modern life can all affect glucose regulation, recovery, body composition and energy levels, often long before anything appears clearly on standard testing. Many women know intuitively that something has shifted in their bodies, even when they are told everything looks “fine”.

This is where I believe wearable technology may have real value when used thoughtfully and in context. Not as a replacement for clinical care or intuition, but as a bridge between subjective experience and physiology.

Of course, there are limitations. Data without interpretation can quickly become overwhelming. For some individuals, constant tracking may increase anxiety or perfectionism. More information does not automatically create better health. The goal is not to monitor ourselves obsessively, but to develop greater self awareness and earlier insight into patterns that may otherwise go unnoticed.

What the BANT NED Science Forum highlighted so clearly is that preventative healthcare is evolving. Increasingly, we are moving away from waiting for disease to appear and towards helping people understand the early signals their bodies may already be giving them.

As both a practitioner and now a BANT Director, I left feeling optimistic about that shift.

Not because technology has all the answers, but because it may help more people reconnect with their bodies earlier, ask better questions about their health and make meaningful changes that support long term wellbeing.