The Glucose Never Lies® Podcast

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Jess Shaw was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes on the evening of the worst trial of her life, then spent ten years pretending she did not have it.

Jess is an England netball international, living with type 1 diabetes. In this conversation with John she talks about keeping it quiet as a teenager, being sent home from a tour, a first England cap at a few days' notice, and what changed once she started talking about it. If you have ever hidden your diabetes to keep your place in a team, or you coach someone who might be, this one is for you.

Chapters
00:00 Welcome: how John and Jess met
04:33 Diagnosis at 13: the Leeds trial
08:47 The first rules, and a lot of lows
15:08 Why the first messages stick
18:03 Moving to time in range
19:09 A low HbA1c that hid the lows
20:50 Ten years of hiding it
23:57 Sent home alone at 16
25:10 Why sport needs a diabetes policy
28:43 Super League, England and injuries
34:50 First cap against Australia
38:34 Game day on injections
43:20 Insulin on board and exercise
44:36 A closed loop overnight
46:43 Building a game-day routine
47:44 Commonwealth Games
51:06 Semi-finals and staying consistent
59:23 What John heard
64:21 Jess: you are not alone
69:24 Thanks from John

Guest: Jess Shaw, England netball international, living with type 1 diabetes.
Host: John Pemberton, founder of The Glucose Never Lies, a paediatric diabetes dietitian, and a person living with type 1 diabetes.

A note on scope. Where John describes practice at Birmingham Children's Hospital, he is speaking in his clinical role there, and that sits outside GNL. It is a report of one specialist paediatric service, not GNL guidance, not a protocol, and not a recommendation to any other service or family. The support John gave Jess as an adult was through GNL's consultation service, not his NHS role, and her own diabetes team made the decisions about her treatment, including her pump. What Jess describes is her own experience. It is not a claim about what GNL, or any device, will do for anyone else, and it is not advice to anyone listening.

Links
Show notes: theglucoseneverlies.com/episode-44-jess-shaw-type-1-netball
Watch on YouTube: youtu.be/x3zsbZuffCQ
Previous episode: theglucoseneverlies.com/episode-43-tandem-control-iq-plus-mobi

Grace, our AI diabetes educational adviser, did not write a word of this. Credited anyway. Ask her anything: theglucoseneverlies.com/gnl-grace
Independent by design. The Glucose Never Lies® takes no sponsorship and no advertising. We run on education grants and listener donations. If this helped, buy the GNL a coffee (buymeacoffee.com/gnlfree).
Follow: Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, John on LinkedIn, X
Contact: collaboration, john@theglucoseneverlies.com; creatives, anj@theglucoseneverlies.com
For education only. Not medical advice and not a substitute for individual care; decisions about your care sit with you and your diabetes team.
© The Glucose Never Lies Ltd, company number 16733595. All rights reserved.

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A pump can be technically excellent and still deliver mediocre results, because the two settings that decide the outcome are the ones most clinicians tune last.

Laurel Messer, VP of Global Medical Affairs at Tandem Diabetes Care, returns to open the GNL AID series. She and John go through the real-world data behind Control-IQ's most powerful lever, what Control-IQ+ changes for the very young and the very high dose, the new sick day and extended bolus tools, the fresh FDA clearance for pregnancy, and the Tandem Mobi.

IN THIS EPISODE
- Why correction factor, not basal rate or target, is the setting with the biggest real-world effect on time in range (Messer 2023, n equals 20,764)
- Control-IQ+, the total daily dose range extended to 5 to 200 units, opening the system to very young children and very high insulin users
- Control-IQ+, the correction factor ceiling raised from 11 to 33 mmol/L (200 to 600 mg/dL)
- The new sick day hack, a temp basal that runs without leaving automation
- The extended bolus, up to eight hours, for high fat meals and delayed gastric emptying
- Fresh FDA clearance for Control-IQ in pregnancy, and what the CIRCUIT trial found for time in pregnancy range
- The Tandem Mobi, a matchbox sized on-body pump running the same Control-IQ algorithm

CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction, launching the AID series
01:43 Welcome back, Laurel Messer
03:55 The 2023 registry paper, correction factor as the secret sauce
10:40 A basal and correction factor formula in practice
12:39 Time blocks across the day, the dusk phenomenon
15:37 Control-IQ+, wider total daily dose range
17:27 Control-IQ+, correction factor ceiling raised
20:50 Recap, basal at 50 percent, correction factor as the dial
22:36 Temp basal with automation on, the sick day hack
26:32 Extended bolus, up to eight hours
28:17 The pizza test
30:23 The science, why fat blocks insulin
32:21 FDA clearance for pregnancy
36:06 CIRCUIT trial results
44:22 Sleep Activity in pregnancy
49:14 Introducing the Tandem Mobi
53:41 Mobi minimum fill and early feedback
57:16 Takeaways, the two levers to know

GUEST
Laurel Messer, VP of Global Medical Affairs, Tandem Diabetes Care.
Host: John Pemberton, founder of The Glucose Never Lies and a paediatric diabetes dietitian, and a person living with type 1 diabetes.

LINKS (all full absolute URLs)
Show notes: https://www.theglucoseneverlies.com/episode-43-tandem-control-iq-plus-mobi/
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/2Zq2XALSnYA
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-glucose-never-lies/id1795741144
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2MlGlz2G8LsbDnuGtAh77W
AID Algorithm Optimiser: https://www.theglucoseneverlies.com/aid-system-explorer/
Previous episode: https://www.theglucoseneverlies.com/episode-42-dice-2026-highlights/

ASK GRACE
Have more questions? Ask GNL Grace, a diabetes educational adviser built by a team with skin in the game. Grace gets you 80 per cent of the way there with 20 per cent of the effort; the final 20 per cent takes self-discovery, guided by human expertise and trial-and-error learning. Check out Grace at https://www.theglucoseneverlies.com/gnl-grace/

SUPPORT THIS PODCAST
The Glucose Never Lies is independent by design. We take no sponsorship and no advertising, so the podcast stays answerable only to the people who listen to it. If it has been useful, you can help keep it that way: drop a one-off tip, or set up a small monthly amount to keep the show ad-free. Either way, every penny goes back into making episodes.
Buy us a coffee (one-off or keep-it-ad-free): https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gnlfree

FOLLOW
Website: https://www.theglucoseneverlies.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theglucoseneverlies
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theglucoseneverlies
X: https://twitter.com/GlucoseNLies

DISCLAIMER
This podcast is for education only. It is not medical advice and is not a substitute for individualised care from your diabetes team. This episode reflects the independent clinical perspective of John Pemberton; Laurel Messer speaks in her role at Tandem Diabetes Care. It is not an endorsement by GNL of any product.

The Glucose Never Lies is a registered trademark of The GNL Ltd. Company No. 16733595. UK VAT No. GB 516 3272 08.
Independent by design. The Glucose Never Lies® takes no sponsorship and no advertising. We run on education grants and listener donations. If this helped, buy the GNL a coffee (buymeacoffee.com/gnlfree).
Follow: Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, John on LinkedIn, X
Contact: collaboration, john@theglucoseneverlies.com; creatives, anj@theglucoseneverlies.com
For education only. Not medical advice and not a substitute for individual care; decisions about your care sit with you and your diabetes team.
© The Glucose Never Lies Ltd, company number 16733595. All rights reserved.

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Suggest guests or get in contact
John Pemberton was at Croke Park on 21 May for DICE — Diabetes Ireland Conference and Exhibition — Ireland's premier annual event for healthcare professionals working in diabetes. The day also saw the launch of the landmark National Policy and Services Review for diabetes in Ireland. John grabbed a microphone and seven conversations. This episode is all of them.
Anjanee Kohli is Co-Director and Creative Director of The Glucose Never Lies® and the host for this episode. John Pemberton is founder of The Glucose Never Lies® and a paediatric diabetes dietitian at Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust; he is also a person living with T1D. This episode reflects the independent views of both.
This episode covers:
Sinead Powell (Education and Support Coordinator, Diabetes Ireland): the COPE programme, emotional wellbeing in type 2 diabetes, language, stigma, and why information alone is never enough
Kathy Breen (Clinical Specialist Dietitian and Dietetic Lead, National Diabetes Programme): what Language Matters looks like in practice, person-first language, and its inclusion in the new national strategy
Kate Gaievska (Clinical Manager for Advocacy and Research, Diabetes Ireland): why adult diabetes psychology services in Ireland are effectively non-existent, what the strategy commits to, and the long road of implementation
Professor Fidelma Dunne (University of Galway / National Clinical Trials Network in Diabetes): how clinical trials get funded, why real-world data matters, and why research is not the icing on the cake
Christine Newman (Diabetes Consultant, Galway): hybrid closed-loop in pregnancy, CGM for type 2, and the case for free glucose strips for gestational diabetes
Professor Derek O'Keefe (Consultant Physician and Professor of Medical Device Technology, UHG): Mochara, a bounded AI education tool that matched nurse and doctor performance in trials, ambient clinical documentation, intelligent dynamic triage, and what multimodal AI means for diabetes care
Dr Tomas Griffin (Consultant Diabetologist, Galway / DTN Ireland): what the strategy means for pump access, the DTN Ireland roadshow, and why every tier of hospital in Ireland is now starting pump therapy
Show notes: https://theglucoseneverlies.com/
Have more questions? Ask GNL Grace, a diabetes educational adviser built by a team with skin in the game. Grace gets you 80% of the way there with 20% of the effort; the final 20% takes self-discovery, guided by human expertise and trial-and-error learning. https://theglucoseneverlies.com/gnl-grace/
Independent by design. The Glucose Never Lies® takes no sponsorship and no advertising. We run on education grants and listener donations. If this helped, buy the GNL a coffee (buymeacoffee.com/gnlfree).
Follow: Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, John on LinkedIn, X
Contact: collaboration, john@theglucoseneverlies.com; creatives, anj@theglucoseneverlies.com
For education only. Not medical advice and not a substitute for individual care; decisions about your care sit with you and your diabetes team.
© The Glucose Never Lies Ltd, company number 16733595. All rights reserved.

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Every few months, The Glucose Never Lies stops and takes stock. No single guest, no single topic: three CGM Series episodes have landed since the last round-up, Grace has a new model, and John has appeared on two podcasts that are not his own. This episode covers all of it.

Anjanee Kohli is Co-Director and Creative Director of The Glucose Never Lies® and the host for this episode. John Pemberton is founder of The Glucose Never Lies® and a paediatric diabetes dietitian at Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust; he is also a person living with T1D. This episode reflects the independent views of both.

This episode covers:
- CGM Series catch-up: episodes 38, 39, and 40 in one conversation
- The IFCC glucose stress test: what it measures, the CE-versus-FDA accuracy gap, and the car crash analogy for insulin-dosing sensors
- The MDI generation gap: why people on injections have had one generation of CGM while pump users have had five
- What 17 early adopters actually reported about Night Low Predict and Glucose Predict on the Accu-Chek SmartGuide
- Grace's new model: a 30-day free trial for everyone, then Personal at £5 a month (£50 a year) and HCP at £20 a month (£200 a year); a £5 Buy Me a Coffee sponsorship opens a free account for someone on the waiting list
- The near-bankruptcy moment: flat architecture to wiki retrieval layer, cost reduced to roughly five per cent
- Why Grace has no memory by design: the deliberate reasoning behind a deliberate constraint
- John on Diabetech (Gary Shiner's show, hosted by Justin): CGM international testing standards
- John on Tomorrow's Medicine with Arseniy Arsentyev: how Grace was built, the antibody result that started it, and what nearly ended it
- AI and healthcare work: the people who adapt, the people who hide behind procedure, and what cannot be automated

Show notes: https://theglucoseneverlies.com/episode-41-cgm-series-grace-diabetech/

Before this episode, John appeared on:
Diabetech (Gary Shiner's show, hosted by Justin): https://youtu.be/6sxM1HOxcP4?si=2B3lHzyjSBgPKYfb
Tomorrow's Medicine with Arseniy Arsentyev: https://youtu.be/60MZGAk86NY?si=l3oF1J37EiI7fcCE

Have more questions? Ask GNL Grace, a diabetes educational advisor built by a team with skin in the game. Grace gets you 80% of the way there with 20% of the effort; the final 20% takes self-discovery, guided by human expertise and trial-and-error learning. https://theglucoseneverlies.com/gnl-grace/

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Disclaimer
This podcast is for education and informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice and is not a substitute for individualised care.

The Glucose Never Lies® is independent by design
We do not accept sponsorships and advertising. We operate via education grants and donations from listeners who value independence. So, consider:
Buying the GNL a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gnlfree

Enquiries
Collaboration: John Pemberton, john@theglucoseneverlies.com
Creatives: Anjanee Kohli, anj@theglucoseneverlies.com

Follow The Glucose Never Lies®
Website: https://theglucoseneverlies.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theglucoseneverlies
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theglucoseneverlies
LinkedIn John Pemberton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-pemberton-587104361/
LinkedIn Anjanee Kohli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjanee-kohli-chohan-1b22a217b/
Instagram Anjanee Kohli: https://www.instagram.com/anjanee.dietitian
X: https://twitter.com/GlucoseNLies
Independent by design. The Glucose Never Lies® takes no sponsorship and no advertising. We run on education grants and listener donations. If this helped, buy the GNL a coffee (buymeacoffee.com/gnlfree).
Follow: Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, John on LinkedIn, X
Contact: collaboration, john@theglucoseneverlies.com; creatives, anj@theglucoseneverlies.com
For education only. Not medical advice and not a substitute for individual care; decisions about your care sit with you and your diabetes team.
© The Glucose Never Lies Ltd, company number 16733595. All rights reserved.

Suggest guests or get in contact
People on MDI have had one generation of CGM technology: a sensor that tells you what your glucose is doing now, with a 15-minute trend arrow. While pump users have moved through five iterations, injection users have been waiting. The Accu-Chek SmartGuide is the first attempt at a second generation - and this episode asks whether it delivers.
Amy Jolley is a Highly Specialised Dietitian, Lead Educator at the Diabetes Technology Network UK, and Lead for the Young Adult and Transition Service at Salford NHS Foundation Trust. This episode is not endorsed by Roche Diagnostics, but the experience of a healthcare professional's experience of putting 17 people onto the SmartGuide in one week, running group onboarding sessions, and asking them to come back and tell her what actually happened. Her host, John Pemberton, is founder of The Glucose Never Lies® and a person living with T1D. 
This episode covers:
- Why MDI has been stuck at Generation 1 while pump technology moved through five iterations
- Night Low Predict: RAG ratings, first-half versus second-half of the night, and how to teach it
- Glucose Predict: the 45-minute action window versus the two-hour awareness window
- What 17 early adopters actually reported back
- How the 45-minute look ahead reduces the rage bolus
- Why calibration is an educational opportunity, not a drawback
- CGM market saturation and the DTN quality standard
- The DTN Competency Assessment Framework: four tiers, self-assessment, a training passport for clinicians
- GNL Grace in clinical practice: Amy's feedback from a specialist service supporting 700 AID users
Show notes: https://theglucoseneverlies.com/accu-chek-smartguide-mdi-cgm-series/
Have more questions? Ask GNL Grace, a diabetes educational advisor built by a team with skin in the game. Grace gets you 80% of the way there with 20% of the effort; the final 20% takes self-discovery, guided by human expertise and trial-and-error learning. https://theglucoseneverlies.com/gnl-grace/
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Disclaimer
This podcast is for education and informational purposes only. It does not constitute medical advice and is not a substitute for individualised care.
The Glucose Never Lies® is independent by design
We do not accept sponsorships and advertising. We operate via education grants and donations from listeners who value independence. So, consider:
Buying the GNL a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gnlfree
Enquiries
Collaboration: John Pemberton, john@theglucoseneverlies.com
Creatives: Anjanee Kohli, anj@theglucoseneverlies.com
Follow The Glucose Never Lies®
Website: https://theglucoseneverlies.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theglucoseneverlies
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theglucoseneverlies
LinkedIn John Pemberton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-pemberton-587104361/
LinkedIn Anjanee Kohli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anjanee-kohli-chohan-1b22a217b/
Instagram Anjanee Kohli: https://www.instagram.com/anjanee.dietitian
X: https://twitter.com/GlucoseNLies
Independent by design. The Glucose Never Lies® takes no sponsorship and no advertising. We run on education grants and listener donations. If this helped, buy the GNL a coffee (buymeacoffee.com/gnlfree).
Follow: Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, John on LinkedIn, X
Contact: collaboration, john@theglucoseneverlies.com; creatives, anj@theglucoseneverlies.com
For education only. Not medical advice and not a substitute for individual care; decisions about your care sit with you and your diabetes team.
© The Glucose Never Lies Ltd, company number 16733595. All rights reserved.