But does the controversial Anti-Spike Formula mean you can really have your cake and eat it? We investigate
Health influencer and cookbook author The Glucose Goddess, Jessie Inchauspé, has announced the April launch of Anti-Spike Formula, a supplement that claims to reduce the post-food glucose spike that happens after we eat carbs or sugar by up to 40 per cent. This, she says, could make us less prone to over-eating, low mood and a host of more serious health problems including hormonal imbalances, inflammation and Alzheimer’s.
The idea is that you take two tablets once a day, just before eating the “carbs or sugar that you love, as you normally would”. Costing £46 for 30 servings, it’s currently available to pre-order from the Glucose Goddess website.
But can you really just pop a pill and scoff doughnuts with impunity? There was uproar from health professionals on Instagram when Inchauspé, a 32-year-old French biochemist with more than three million Instagram followers and two best-selling books, announced the launch, and appeared on GP Dr Rupy Aujla’s The Doctor’s Kitchen podcast with a bottle of her pills in full view of the camera. “Disappointing” and “dangerous” were common reactions in the comments, while the Daily Mail called it “snake oil”.
How does Glucose Goddess Anti-Spike work?
Image: antispike.com
“You take Anti-Spike before eating carbs or sugar, and it reduces their glucose spike by up to 40 percent,” says Inchauspé. “Same cake, up to 40 percent less spike. Same pasta, up to 40 percent less spike.”
The Glucose Goddess website mentions 25 clinical trials with links to a selection that illustrate the efficacy of the individual ingredients in reducing blood sugar spikes by this percentage.
However, there are no trials cited showing that these ingredients work efficiently when taken together. And I couldn’t find any specific trials on the site that pertain to Anti-Spike being tested. When Inchauspé was challenged about this on Instagram, she said she was hoping to run trials on her product in the future but, currently, the costs were prohibitive.
What’s in the Glucose Goddess Anti-Spike?
Image: antispike.com
Anti-Spike is a blend of four natural ingredients.
- White mulberry leaf. This, “lets sugar molecules of your meal pass through to your microbiome without being absorbed into your bloodstream,” says Inchauspé.
- Lemon extract. To help you feel “more satiated”.
- A blend of vegetable extracts. These contain health-boosting polyphenols and are purple carrot, spinach, broccoli, cabbage, asparagus, courgette, cucumber and artichoke.
- Cinnamon: “This has been proven to combat insulin resistance”.
Who is the Glucose Goddess?
Image: antispike.com
Inchauspé, whose books The Glucose Revolution and The Glucose Goddess Method have both been best-sellers, has built her following by offering easy, accessible tips on managing our blood sugar levels to avoid glucose spikes and drops throughout the day.
It used to be that managing glucose levels was only of interest to those with diabetes. But today you can’t move for people wearing continuous glucose monitors on their arms – it’s part of the testing phase of the wildly popular Zoe programme for example.
Until now, Inchauspé has focused on eminently sensible, easy and largely free dietary advice to reduce spikes, such as having vegetables as a starter. The fibre helps reduce absorption of glucose that follows later in the meal.
As someone who can’t resist a 4pm biscuit or three, I’m certainly interested in better managing my blood sugar levels. And I love a simple, effective biohack as much as the next health writer. But the brand messaging posits the pill as a ‘get out of a jail free’ card.
Surely, rather than gleefully advising people on how they can get away with eating rubbish (if they fork out £46 per month, of course), we should be encouraging people to better manage their blood sugar levels by not eating the rubbish in the first place? Anyone with the slightest interest in nutrition will know that those kind of ultra-processed foods are bad news.
What does a nutritionist say about Anti-Spike?
“You cannot outdo a poor diet with a pill,” says nutritional therapist Pippa Campbell. “Food comes first then supplements are exactly that - to supplement a healthy diet,” she says. “I appreciate some people cannot always eat as healthily as they would like so supplements can be very useful but it certainly does not mean you can eat all the cake you like and just take a pill!”
There’s a danger of over-simplifying the issue too, says Campbell. “Blood sugar balance is more nuanced than just looking at spikes caused by food. In clinic we test fasting blood glucose, HBA1C [average glucose levels for the past two-to-three months] and fasting insulin in blood tests.” She adds that someone’s insulin can be rising for eight-to-ten years before you may see any impact on blood sugar. “Also sleep, stress and other lifestyle factors all play a role.”
Is The Glucose Goddess’s miracle tablet a biohack too far? I think so. Inchauspé, meanwhile, is being nonchalant (in that way that only the French can pull off) about the backlash, shrugging off criticism. “Remember, this is not a magic pill - it’s an extra tool to help you on your glucose journey. Always focus on my food hacks first,” she says. And she’s used the controversy to re-angle her pitch: it’s now the supplement “that everyone is talking about”.
No doubt we’ll be hearing much more about Anti-Spike when it finally goes on sale in April. Watch this space.