Metabolic Insights puts your blood ketone readings beside everything else you log: glucose, food, fasting, sleep, training and weight. It shows you what tends to happen together in your own data.
Metabolic Insights is a Loopa Premium feature. It is in the iPhone and Android apps; there is no web page for it.
It answers one question: what seems to happen in my data? The screen says so at the bottom: "This shows what seems to happen in your own data. It is not medical advice." It does not tell you what any number means for your health, and it never suggests changing your food, fasting, exercise or medication. Those are conversations for your clinician, and Loopa can put the numbers in front of them (see sharing a report with your clinician).
Opening it
On iPhone: Health tab › Insights › Metabolic Insights. You can also search the Health tab for "ketones", "BHB", "GKI", "keto" or "relationships". On Loopa Basic the row wears a Premium badge and tapping it shows what Loopa Premium includes.
A ketone reminder's notification opens the hub with the entry sheet ready.
The hub
From top to bottom:
- Log ketones (the + in the top bar) and the Log a ketone reading button both open the entry sheet.
- Set a ketone reminder opens the reminder editor already set to the Ketone check type. See Reminders and notifications.
- Latest: cards for Ketones (BHB), Glucose ketone index, Glucose and Fasting. Each shows the latest value, when it was taken, where it came from and a plain trend. The GKI card says how its glucose was found: "Glucose entered with it", "Glucose chosen by you" or "Glucose paired automatically". The Fasting card reads "In a fast now" (with the fast and when it started), "Last fast" (with when it ended) or "No fast logged". A card with nothing to show says No data; it never shows a zero you did not log.
- In your data: short sentences about what your readings show.
- Your 30-day baselines: "Your own medians, compared with nobody else's." One line each for ketones, GKI, glucose, sleep, resting heart rate, weight and heart rate variability, where you have data.
- Your readings: your newest 12 readings. Each row shows the BHB value, when it was taken and its context, and the GKI (or a dash). Tap one to open it. With none yet: "No ketone readings yet. Log one from your meter and it appears here with the glucose it pairs with."
- Explore: Trends and comparisons, What moves together, and Export readings (CSV).
- About these numbers: what the GKI is, and why ketones are logged by hand.
Pull down to refresh. If the hub can't load it says so with a button to try again.
Logging a ketone reading
Blood ketone meters measure beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) in mmol/L.[1]
The sheet is titled Log ketones. Save stays dim until the reading can be saved; Cancel closes it.
- Blood ketones (BHB): the reading from your meter, from 0 to 10 mmol/L. If it can't be saved the sheet says why: "Enter a ketone reading.", "Enter a number, like 1.2.", "Readings start at 0 mmol/L." or "That is above 10 mmol/L, the most this log accepts. Check the meter's display."
- Taken: the date and time, now by default. It can be up to 10 minutes in the future.
- When was it taken? › Context: Not set (the default), Fasting, Before a meal, After a meal, Before exercise, After exercise, Bedtime, On waking or Other.
- Glucose for the GKI: Automatic, Enter one or Choose one (see below).
- Note (optional): up to 280 characters, with a counter.
Tap Save. If it doesn't go through you see the reason, or "Couldn't save. Check your connection and try again."
Apple Health and Health Connect have no blood-ketone type, so ketone readings are logged in Loopa. Glucose, sleep, activity, weight and nutrition from your connected sources are used automatically as they arrive.
The glucose ketone index (GKI)
The GKI is the ratio of your blood glucose to your blood ketones, both in mmol/L.[2] It is an emerging measure that researchers are still studying, and it is not a validated diagnostic.[3]
Choose how the sheet finds the glucose reading:
- Automatic (the default): "Loopa pairs this with your nearest glucose reading within 15 minutes, or within 30 if there is none closer. With no glucose reading in that time, there is no GKI."
- Enter one: type the glucose from the same test and choose mg/dL or mmol/L. It is "Saved as a glucose reading at the same time, and paired with this one", so it also appears in your vitals. Glucose runs from 20 to 600 mg/dL (1.1 to 33.3 mmol/L). The sheet tells you if the value is missing or outside that range.
- Choose one: pick from the glucose readings within 30 minutes. Each shows its value, time, how many minutes away it is, its source, and which one Automatic would pick ("the automatic choice"). With none: "No glucose readings within 30 minutes of this time." If you haven't picked one: "Choose a glucose reading, or switch to Automatic." Changing Taken reloads the list.
If there is no glucose reading close enough, the GKI shows No data rather than a number. Edit or delete the glucose reading and the GKI updates on its own. Move a ketone reading more than 30 minutes away from its glucose reading and Loopa pairs it again by the automatic rules.
Loopa shows no GKI ranges or targets and marks no value as good or bad.
One reading
Tap a reading in Your readings to open Ketone reading.
- The reading itself, with Taken, Context, Source and your Note.
- Glucose ketone index, with a sentence saying how it was paired, for example "Paired automatically (within 15 min) with glucose 92 mg/dL taken 6 min apart · Apple Health." If the reading it was first paired with has been deleted, it says the nearest one was used instead. With no GKI it says why: no glucose reading within 30 minutes, or a ketone reading of 0, which can't be divided by.
- Around this reading: Fast at the time ("Not during a fast timed in Loopa" if you weren't timing one) and Previous meal (how long before, with its macros).
- Food in the 24 hours before: Net carbs, Carbs, Fibre, Protein, Fat and Energy, with the number of food entries. If some foods had no fibre figure, it warns that net carbs may read high. With nothing logged: "No food logged in the 24 hours before."
- Sleep the night before, Heart rate variability ("Not available": no connected source sends it to Loopa yet) and Resting heart rate.
- Exercise in the 24 hours before (with the number of sessions), Steps that day, and Nearest weight ("Same day", "N days away", or "None within 3 days").
Editing or deleting a reading
Tap Reading actions (the ⋯ button) at the top.
- Edit opens the sheet as Edit reading. Its button reads Update.
- Delete asks Delete this reading? with "A glucose reading you entered with it stays in Vitals." Tap Delete or Cancel. If it fails you see COULDN'T DELETE.
Trends and comparisons
The screen is titled Trends, with three views: Trend (the default), Compare and Scatter.
Range applies to all three: 7d, 30d (the default), 90d, 6m, 1y or Custom. Custom shows From and To dates, up to today, and starts 60 days back. At larger text sizes the pills become "Last 7 days" and so on.
- Trend: pick one Measure: Ketones (BHB) (the default), Glucose ketone index, Blood glucose, Weight, Sleep, Net carbs, Calories eaten, Fasting hours, Exercise minutes, Resting heart rate or Steps. It draws one chart, says how many readings or days had data, and gives your baseline. With nothing in the range: "No data in this range".
- Compare: Compare two to four of the same measures. It starts with ketones and blood glucose; you can't go below two or above four. "Each track has its own scale. They share only the dates along the bottom."
- Scatter: Readings (Ketones (BHB) or Glucose ketone index) Against a measure (Net carbs, Calories eaten, Protein, Fat, Exercise minutes, Sleep, Fasting duration, Weight or Weight change over 7 days) Over a window such as The meal before, 1 hour before, 6 hours before, 12 hours before, 24 hours before or The previous day. Over appears only when the measure has more than one window. It starts on ketones against net carbs over the 24 hours before. It shows Paired readings (of how many readings in the range), the share of Readings with no value for this measure, and the relationship, if any. With none: "No paired readings in this range".
What moves together
This screen looks for things that tend to move with your ketones and GKI: food in the meal before and over the previous 6, 12 and 24 hours and the previous day, exercise in the previous 1 to 24 hours, last night's sleep, how long you had been fasting (for readings taken during a fast you timed in Loopa), and your weight. A reading with nothing logged in a window is left out of that comparison rather than counted as zero. Its Range starts at 90 days.
- Patterns in your data: one card per pattern, titled with what moved together and when, for example "Ketones and net carbs in the 24 hours before", with a strength badge, a sentence, the number of paired readings, and Why am I seeing this?. With none: "No pattern stands out in this range. That is a result too: nothing here moved together often enough to describe."
- Trends: one sentence each on how your ketones, GKI and glucose have moved.
- By context and fasting: how your readings compare across the contexts you chose and in and out of a fast, with each group's median and how many readings it rests on.
- No relationship found: the comparisons where nothing stood out. Each opens its details.
- Not enough data yet: the comparisons still waiting, with how many paired readings each has.
- "Worked out" and when.
Every pattern says how many paired readings it rests on, and the wording follows the numbers:
| What you see | What it takes |
|---|---|
| Not enough data yet | Fewer than 10 paired readings |
| No relationship found | Nothing stands out once all the comparisons are taken into account |
| Weak, Possible or Moderate | 10 or more paired readings, by strength |
| Stronger recurring pattern | 20 or more paired readings and a clear signal |
Why am I seeing this?
Tap any pattern to see why it reads the way it does: the engine's own lines, then "This describes readings that tended to go together. It does not show that one led to the other." Under The details: Compared, Window (and how many hours it looks back), Paired readings, Missing, Method (Pearson, Spearman (rank) or Not run, with why), Coefficient, Linear trend, Adjusted p (q) ("Adjusted for the number of comparisons made"), Unusual readings, Needs before describing and Worked out.
Personal baselines are your own 30-day medians. Loopa compares you only with yourself. On iPhone they are on the hub; Android also has a separate Your baselines screen.
Exporting your readings
Export readings (CSV) (it reads "Preparing CSV…" while it works) builds a spreadsheet of your readings from the last year and opens the share sheet. The file is named loopa-ketone-readings-<date>.csv. Its columns are time, BHB, unit, context, source, the paired glucose, GKI, how it was paired, fasting duration and your note. If it fails you see COULDN'T EXPORT. On Android the export covers the last 90 days.
You can also add a Metabolic Insights section to the report you share with your clinician. It is off unless you turn it on.
On Android
Android has the same features with a few differences in layout: the latest cards open a trend when tapped, there are separate Readings and Side by side screens, the entry sheet has an optional Meter name field, and the delete option is on the edit screen.
If your Premium membership ends
Metabolic Insights locks, and nothing is deleted. When you rejoin Loopa Premium, every reading and every chart is back where you left it.
See also
References
- ^ Metabolism of ketone bodies during exercise and training: physiological basis for exogenous supplementation.
- ^ The glucose ketone index calculator: a simple tool to monitor therapeutic efficacy for metabolic management of brain cancer.
- ^ Bischof, E. The glucose ketone index: a compelling mechanistic hypothesis on the path to clinical validation.
