Project summary

A standardized meal can produce a highly repeatable glucose response without telling us much about how the same person responds to other foods. We found this directly when comparing two open CGM datasets. In one dataset, a single standardized breakfast predicted later responses to other meals quite well. In another, the result depended strongly on the challenge meal. This project asks what makes a metabolic challenge informative rather than merely repeatable.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

I will run one harmonized analysis across the existing datasets and any additional open dataset that meets predefined inclusion criteria. For each challenge meal I will measure:

1. same-meal repeatability
2. cross-meal transportability
3. out-of-sample prediction improvement
4. predictive value beyond basic clinical biomarkers

The aim is to identify which properties of a challenge meal make it useful for predicting future glucose responses.

How will this funding be used?

At the minimum level, I will complete the harmonized analysis, robustness checks and public release of code and results. Additional funding will support more datasets, more challenge definitions, stronger out-of-sample validation and external methodological review. Main costs are research time, data engineering, computation and replicatio

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

I am Ilya Nikitin, founder and director of The Null Institute. The first analyses are already complete in two independent CGM datasets. They produced a clear contradiction: some standardized meals transport well across meals, while others are repeatable but do not. https://nullinstitute.org/

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

The main risk is that the effect is highly dataset-specific.

That would still be a useful result. It would show that a standardized meal cannot be treated as a general personalization test without validating its cross-meal transportability.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

No external funding has been received for this project. The work so far has been self-funded.