Wikipedia: “Jessie Inchauspé, also known as Glucose Goddess, is a French bio-chemist and New York Times bestselling author. Her books contain controversial claims promoting techniques designed to manage blood sugar levels.” Nah. Controversial? Nyet. Not entirely, actually.

The strange thing is that I thought I wrote about her. I didn’t. OK, I did on Twitter, but I’m not there anymore, since I was permanently banned.

I know I talked about her and her books with a few people, but that was all. I don’t have any preserved written remarks, so I thought I have to leave here a trace.

Who is she?

Not an impostor, but not entirely legit either. When I first read her book, Glucose Revolution, a couple of things bothered me:

  1. That she was one of those writers (fiction and non-fiction alike) who like to brag: “Look how stupid I was at some moment in time!” In this case, she almost died at age 19 after having jumped off a waterfall. I realize that this is how some over-confident, self-centered, almost narcissistic people do.
  2. That she claims to be a biochemist after having obtained an M.Sc. in Biochemistry & Molecular and Cell Biology at Georgetown University, when her university degree was a B.Sc. in Mathematics at King’s College, London. Really, that means I could become myself “an expert” in biochemistry and molecular and cell biology by taking a 1.5-yr M.Sc., regardless of what I studied before. Cool.
  3. That she was product manager at 23andMe, one of those infamous companies you pay to get a DNA testing for ancestry. Yeah, people refuse to get a DNA sample when asked by law enforcement, but they willingly give their DNA to no matter what company, and they even pay to get their privacy violated. Oh, and she was ecstatic about what she discovered while working at 23andMe.

In brief, I considered her a stupid, narcissistic bitch.

And yet, she did discover something.

Her detractors

There is a lot to criticize at her, but she only has one claim and one claim alone. Older people should remember Dr. Oz, who used to give a lot of great tips and sound advices before getting corrupted and starting to sell crap and tell stupid things. That person is controversial–Jessie is “only” narcissistic.

Let me clarify what I mean by narcissistic.

In The World of Yesterday, Stefan Zweig wrote about Vienna at 1900:

Even a man of thirty was still considered immature, and a forty-year-old was not yet regarded as ready for a position of responsibility. When there was once an astonishing exception, and Gustav Mahler was appointed director of the Court Opera at the age of thirty-eight, horrified murmurs of astonishment ran through the whole of Vienna at the notion of entrusting the highest artistic institution in the country to ‘such a young man’ (no one stopped to think that Mozart had completed all his works at the age of thirty-six, and Schubert his at thirty-one). At the time this distrust of any young person as ‘not quite reliable’ was rife in all circles of society. My father would never have taken a young man into his business, and anyone unfortunate enough to look particularly young had to overcome suspicion wherever he went. Almost incredible as it may seem today, youth was an obstacle in every profession, only age was an advantage. While in today’s entirely different atmosphere men of forty will try hard to look as if they were thirty, and sixty-year-olds to look forty, while these days youth, energy, drive and self-confidence are a recommendation, in that age of security anyone who wanted to get ahead in life had to try all conceivable methods of looking older than his age. Newspapers advertised methods of encouraging your beard to grow, young doctors of twenty-four or twenty-five who had only just qualified as physicians sported heavy beards and wore gold-rimmed glasses even if they had perfect eyesight, just to impress their patients by looking experienced. They wore long, black frock coats and cultivated a measured tread and, if possible, a slight embonpoint in order to achieve that desirably staid appearance, and if they were ambitious they took a good deal of trouble to dissociate themselves from the suspect immaturity of youth, at least in their outward appearance. In our sixth and seventh years at school we ourselves refused to carry the school satchels that branded us schoolboys, and carried briefcases instead. All that now appears enviable—the freshness of youth, its self-confidence, daring, curiosity and lust for life—was suspect at that time, which set store solely on all that was well established.

Nowadays, anyone over 35 is “too old” for any decent intellectual job… unless they’re to be bosses. Then, you know, if you’re a CEO you can have over 80, and you’re not too old. Otherwise, the young retards are preferred to experienced professionals.

But even in the 1970, the education in Europe was still stressing on modesty. That was common sense and the opposite of today’s social networks, when everyone pretends to be an expert. There are countless “experts” on TikTok, and even on YouTube, too many people pretend to know things that they actually don’t understand.

It all started in the United States, probably in the early 1980s. You see, you cannot tell anymore a kid that he failed at school, that he or she needs to learn more, to make a greater effort. No, even if they failed with F, one has to tell them: “You’re great, you tried hard! Good job!” The politically correct society shifted towards emphasizing self-esteem and positive reinforcement, even in situations where individuals clearly experienced failure.

Fast-forward, arrogance is the value now. American English is the only language where “aggressive” is a positive term. The original meaning of belligerent, offensive, threatening, hostile is no more prevalent. The more recent meaning of assertive, bold, competitive, enterprising has taken over. If you don’t believe me, compare older dictionaries or thesauri with newer ones. I compared The Synonym Finder, by J. I. Rodale (Completely Revised), 1978, to Roget’s Super Thesaurus, Fourth Edition, by Marc McCutcheon, 2010, and to Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus in Dictionary Form, Third Edition, by Barbara Ann Kipfer, 2005. It’s as I expected.

So the new societal values don’t value the philosophical doubt and the modesty, but the arrogant over-confidence. This explains the huge number of YouTube vloggers, not counting the TikTok and the Instagram retards–the influencers.

So I can’t really blame Jessie. She’s a product of this society, especially after she crossed The Pond.

Therefore, I’ll only show you a citation of one of her detractors, Professor François Jornayvaz, Head of the Department of Endocrinology, Diabetology, Nutrition and Therapeutic Patient Education at Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) who, among other things, said in an interview:

Elle se cache derrière un aspect pseudoscientifique pour prôner une méthode qui à mon avis ne marche pas et se base sur très peu de preuves. Les études scientifiques qu’elle cite sont très anecdotiques, voire carrément fausses, ou non applicables à ce qu’elle propose. …

Pourquoi son livre remporte-t-il un tel succès selon vous?
Je ne comprends pas très bien. Est-ce l’aspect non restrictif prétendument révolutionnaire? Ou l’aspect technologique qui consiste à s’équiper d’un capteur de glycémie, un appareillage prévu pour les patients diabétiques? Si c’est le cas, c’est absurde, parce que ce dernier ne sert strictement à rien pour des personnes sans diabète. …

Rien à craindre des pics de glycémie alors?
En réalité, ces fameux pics, les non-diabétiques n’en ont pas beaucoup. L’auteure parle de risque de problèmes psychologiques, de fatigue, de fringales, d’acné, de dérèglements hormonaux, d’Alzheimer et de cancer. Ce n’est basé sur rien du tout. Par contre, contrôler l’index glycémique des aliments est une bonne chose. Cela fait partie des approches que les diététiciens ou les médecins nutritionnistes conseillent pour la perte de poids.

A complete idiot, really. He was supposed to be an expert in endocrinology, diabetology, and nutrition. If he really had been competent, he should have known about the reactive hypoglycemia, which experienced by hundreds of millions of people who have not the type 2 diabetes!

Let’s simplify things: anyone eating a Snickers bar, which is considered “quick sugar,” would experience a peak of blood glucose levels, followed by the intervention of insulin. Now, in people with reactive hypoglycemia, this would most likely lead to a temporary hypoglycemia. And such people are many more than you thought. So if you experience dizziness, sweating, and tiredness when you were expecting a boost in energy, you should know why this happens to you! The insulin, called in to counteract sugar peaks too often, has become overreactive. And you might have cravings once again: here goes another Snickers bar…

This has been proved in a very practical manner by Jessie’s IG followers, precisely by using those expensive continuous blood monitoring devices. What better proof do you want than real-time blood glucose measurement? Each and every sequence of foods discussed in Jessie’s first book has been tested by volunteers, who monitored their glucose levels.

I know such devices, and I know that they’re normally used by people who really need them. I met such a young person: her left arm had a continuous blood monitoring device, and her right arm had an automated insulin pump. Poor kid, she really was diabetic. But such devices have proven their usefulness even in… making Jessie Inchauspé famous!

From all of Jessie’s claims, maybe the link to Alzheimer’s and cancer is a bit exaggerated. However, it’s known that high sugar intake can trigger the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the body, contributing to systemic inflammation. And inflammation is a central mechanism in Alzheimer’s disease. The role of neuroinflammation has been confirmed in more recent studies.

Regarding inflammation and the brain, I recommend someone else’s book, Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life, by Max Lugavere with Paul Grewal, M.D., 2018. There is an even more recent book by the same Max Lugavere, The Genius Life: Heal Your Mind, Strengthen Your Body, and Become Extraordinary, 2020, but it’s of a lower quality, IMO, and it refurbishes a lot of ideas from the first one. Oh, and the mandatory cookbook: Genius Kitchen: Over 100 Easy and Delicious Recipes to Make Your Brain Sharp, Body Strong, and Taste Buds Happy, 2022. That was the triptych.

But what is it that Jessie tells us to do?

Ah, let’s come to the point. Two words about her books.

The first one is the one that presents her theory (“her claims”): Glucose Revolution. Originally written in English (despite her being French, but she’s living in NYC), it was then translated into French and in many other languages. The second book, The Glucose Goddess Method, is mostly a cookbook (OK, I oversimplify, but not much).

Also oversimplifying, and from memory:

  • What matters is the order of what you eat. Don’t count your calories. 2,000 calories are not 2,000 calories, the same way a 200-page book is not the same as another 200-page book if the words are not the same and in the same sequence.
  • The best order is: fiber first (e.g., salad, broccoli), proteins, fats, starches (such as potatoes), and sugars last. This would delay the absorption and the diffusion of the sugar in the blood.
  • A bit of apple cider vinegar should also help reduce the glucose peak by up to 30%.
  • The worst possible breakfast: pancakes with Nutella and orange juice. Never start the day with sugar! The breakfast should be salted, not sweet! (Eggs are fine, and here Max Lugavere agrees with her!)
  • Sugar (sucrose) is glucose plus fructose. What we measure is the glucose in the blood, but the fructose is even worse! Note that today’s fruits are not the same as 300 years ago, as they have been selected, grafted, cut, etc., so that they’re increasingly sweeter and less fibrous (think of how we obtained the Chihuahua from the wolf). Entire fruits are better than parts of the fruit, and especially mashed fruits have their fiber structure destroyed. If I remember correctly, strawberries are decent as far as fiber is concerned.

I won’t tell you more, especially as I forgot most of what I read. But I have better.

Watch her shining

Well, une influenceuse should exert her influence, right? From the hundreds of videos taken from the countless participations in TV studios in the US, in the UK, and in France, I did not make any real selection, but YouTube’s algorithm recently proposed me a quite good one in French.

If you have a decent understanding of French, it should be just fine. She’s speaking clearly, and she’s using “normal” words: those who were present in all the dictionaries 50 years ago. (Not the “wesh” type.)

Of course, this alleged philosopher is yet another narcissist, mais passons… (I happen to love the color yellow. Est-ce grave, docteur ?)

A quick selection of shorties for speakers of French:

Now, for those who only understand English, the quickest possible abstract:

The cherry on the cake: for her English-speaking audience, she recently decided to stop being blonde, and she started on her YouTube channel a series of 18 videos collected in the playlist Science Show.

As I am writing this, only the first three are available, but I decided to embed them here:

I can’t believe I’m promoting a narcissist! As misanthrope as I am, I might get softer with age. Oh, and she’s good at marketing; I’ll grant her that.

Bonus videos

I just noticed that my favorite narcissist had a recent interview in the States, a very detailed one and very recent at that (notice her latest haircut), so for the English-speaking world, this is quite helpful:

Should you want to watch it on YT, you can enable the chapters in the description (click on “View all”), so you can have them at the right of the video.

An even longer interview in the US, one year older:

Selected comments:

● I started following Jessie’s hacks because I wanted to stop being hungry every 5 minutes back in April of 2022. Now in March of 2023 I can go 4-5 hours between meals, I’ve lost 35lbs, eat three meals a day, and didn’t have to cut out an entire food group! My anxiety and panic attacks have gotten better too. Absolutely life changing.

● As an Italian, my father would always make us start our meal with our salad, which consisted of Romaine, Olive oil and Vinegar.

● [38:18 – 38:40]
Don’t eat sweet breakfast (eggs, whole eggs are perfect)
Get your protein (maybe a bit of fat)
Eat in right order (first veggies, protein then starches, and if dessert, it goes last)
Add spoon vinegar before eating things that spike your glucose levels
Eat sugars as dessert (no snack, not on empty stomach)
Stay active 🙂