What You Can Do To Stop The Blood Sugar Rollercoaster
If you find that your blood sugars often fluctuate from too high to too low (and vice versa), you’re on the blood sugar rollercoaster. To learn how to eliminate the extremes, you’ll have to do a little sleuthing on your own. Get out your blood glucose meter, and for a week try testing before and after a variety of meals, activities, and destressors to figure out what’s making it go up and down to stop it for good! Your blood sugars are affected by a large number of things, including what you ate (especially refined “white” carbohydrates), how long ago you ate, your starting blood glucose level, physical activity, mental stress, illness, sleep patterns, and more. If you take insulin and use it to treat highs, you can easily end up overcompensating and developing low blood sugars. If you develop a low, it’s easy to overeat and end up high again. Large fluctuations in blood sugars may make you feel cruddy and are bad for your long-term health, so it’s time to learn how to stop the rollercoaster! Physical Activity Effects: During this week, your goal is to do at least 30 minutes of physical activity on three days at varying times of day, and check and record your blood glucose levels before and after the activity. Physical Activity Trial #1: For this first activity, pick one that you normally do (like walking or cycling) and try to do it at your usual time of day. Check and record your blood sugar immediately before starting and within an hour of completing the 30 minutes of activity. You will find that your body responds differently to varying types of physical activities, particularly when the time of day varies as well. If you exercise first thing in the morning (before breakfast and medications), it is not unusual to experience a modest increase in blood s Continue reading >>
Dealing With Unexplained Blood Sugar Spikes
You can do everything right to keep your diabetes under control — eat a smart diet, exercise, take medications as prescribed, and follow your doctor’s instructions for blood sugar monitoring — and still wake up in the morning with unexplained blood sugar spikes. Even in people who don’t have diabetes, blood sugars fluctuate constantly, says Linda M. Siminerio, RD, PhD, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Diabetes Institute. But when you have diabetes and wake up with an increase in blood sugar levels, you shouldn’t ignore it. If high blood sugar happens once in a while and you're able to get it under control quickly with insulin or exercise, it may be nothing serious. “Maybe you have high blood sugar in the morning because you went to a party last night and had a bigger piece of birthday cake,” Dr. Siminerio says. “Or it snowed, and you couldn’t go for your morning run the day before.” But if you consistently wake up with blood sugar spikes and don’t know why, you need to investigate the cause. You may need to adjust your diabetes treatment plan, possibly changing your medication. You won’t feel right if you have high blood sugar, a condition known as hyperglycemia, says Anuj Bhargava, MD, president of the Iowa Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center in Des Moines and founder of My Diabetes Home, an online platform that helps users track their blood sugar and manage their medication. When your blood sugar is too high for a few days or weeks, it can cause more frequent urination, increased thirst, weight loss, blurry vision, fatigue, and nausea. It also can make you more susceptible to infections. When you have high blood sugar for a long time, it can damage the vessels that supply blood to your heart, kidneys, nerves, and eyes, and caus Continue reading >>
Would Type 2 Diabetics Whose Vision Fluctuates Due To Lows & Spikes In Blood Sugar Level Benefit From Lasik Surgery?
I am not a doctor, but I have had LASIK surgery myself and know a little bit about diabetes which I've learned from listening to doctors at Weimar Institute in California. LASIK is a surgery that reshapes the cornea to improve vision. It would have no effect on vision fluctuations caused by diabetes, as far as I know. You should discuss your question with an ophthalmologist. I would highly recommend free videos from Weimar if you want to learn how you may reverse diabetes, so you don't have permanent loss of vision due to diabetic retinopathy. Check out these resources. You will need to register and join the NEWSTART Lifestyle Club to view these. It is completely free with no hidden obligations. Here's the link. Join I have personally visited Weimar more than once, and I have the utmost respect for their programs and materials. The following links will take you to articles and video presentations from various doctors and other presenters associated with Weimar Institute. All of the following videos are tagged as relevant to the topic of diabetes. A wealth of helpful and health-giving information at your fingertips!!! Don't be overwhelmed by the list. I would suggest that you choose the title that sounds interesting and check it out. If you don't like the presenter's style choose another one. May this information be a blessing to you! Reading Material Type II Diabetes Article by Clarence Ing, MD Diabetes Is Reversible! Article by Milton Teske, MD Diabetes: The Butter With The Sweet Article by John Clark, MD Exercise Article by Milton Teske, MD Foods for Thought Article by Vicki Griffin The Winning Diet for Type 2 Diabetes Article by Elizabeth Hall Videos Diabetes Management Winston Craig Mysteries of Phytochemicals Winston Craig Heart Disease and Diabetes Jim Brackett Wh Continue reading >>
Taming The Post-meal Blood Sugar Spike
by Gary Scheiner MS, CDE Postprandial spikes are temporary high blood sugars that occur soon after eating. It is normal for the blood sugar to rise a small amount after eating, even in people who do not have diabetes. However, if the spike is too high, it can affect your quality of life today and contribute to serious health problems down the road. The reason blood sugar “spikes” very high after eating for many people with diabetes is a simple matter of timing. In a non-diabetic, consumption of carbohydrate results in two important reactions: the immediate release of insulin into the bloodstream, and production of a hormone called amylin. Insulin produced by the pancreas starts working almost immediately and finishes its job in a matter of minutes. Amylin keeps food from reaching the intestines too quickly (where the nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream). As a result, the moment blood sugar starts to rise, insulin is there to sweep the extra sugar into the body’s cells. In most cases, the after-meal blood sugar rise is barely noticeable. However, in people with diabetes, the situation is like a batter with very slow reflexes facing a pitcher who throws 98 mph fastballs: the timing is all fouled up. Rapid-acting insulin that is injected (or infused by a pump) at mealtimes takes approximately 15 minutes to start working, 60-90 minutes to “peak”, and four hours or more to finish working. And don’t forget about the amylin hormone effect. In people with diabetes, amylin is either produced in insufficient amounts or not at all. As a result, food digests even faster than usual. This combination of slower insulin and faster food can cause blood sugar to rise quite high soon after eating. This is followed by a sharp drop once the mealtime insulin finally kicks Continue reading >>
The 4 Foods That Will Steady Your Blood Sugar
Wondering what blood sugar has to do with you, if you don’t have diabetes? Keeping your blood sugar levels as steady as possiblenow may help you avoid getting diabetes later. “As you get older, your risk for type 2 diabetes goes up,” says Alissa Rumsey, Registered Dietitian and Spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “Since you can’t modify your age, it is important to take other steps to lower your risk, including maintaining a healthy weight, getting enough exercise, and balancing your diet to prevent spikes in blood sugar.” Controlling your blood sugar will also just make you feel better. “It’s best to control blood sugar—it keeps your energy stable,” says Leann Olansky, M.D., an endocrinologist at the Cleveland Clinic. “If your blood sugar doesn’t vary that much before and after a meal, that’s a healthier way to be.” Unrelated to diabetes, symptoms of occasional high blood sugar aren’t life-threatening, but rather unpleasant and only potentially dangerous if you suffer from other health problems. “When your blood sugar is too high, it can make you feel sluggish,” says Dr. Olansky. “When it’s higher still, it can lead to dehydration and make your blood pressure unstable, and cause you to urinate more often, especially at night.” But when your blood sugar remains chronically high, insulin, a hormone that’s supposed to help your body store sugar as energy, stops working as it should. “Prolonged high blood sugar levels can lead to insulin resistance, meaning your body isn’t able to use insulin properly,” says Rumsey. “Over time this insulin resistance can develop into diabetes, when insulin isn’t able to keep your blood sugar within normal levels.” Current research reveals an association between spik Continue reading >>
8 Sneaky Things That Raise Your Blood Sugar Levels
Skipping breakfast iStock/Thinkstock Overweight women who didn’t eat breakfast had higher insulin and blood sugar levels after they ate lunch a few hours later than they did on another day when they ate breakfast, a 2013 study found. Another study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that men who regularly skipped breakfast had a 21 percent higher chance of developing diabetes than those who didn’t. A morning meal—especially one that is rich in protein and healthy fat—seems to stabilize blood sugar levels throughout the day. Your breakfast is not one of the many foods that raise blood sugar. Here are some other things that happen to your body when you skip breakfast. Artificial sweeteners iStock/Thinkstock They have to be better for your blood sugar than, well, sugar, right? An interesting new Israeli study suggests that artificial sweeteners can still take a negative toll and are one of the foods that raise blood sugar. When researchers gave mice artificial sweeteners, they had higher blood sugar levels than mice who drank plain water—or even water with sugar! The researchers were able to bring the animals’ blood sugar levels down by treating them with antibiotics, which indicates that these fake sweeteners may alter gut bacteria, which in turn seems to affect how the body processes glucose. In a follow-up study of 400 people, the research team found that long-term users of artificial sweeteners were more likely to have higher fasting blood sugar levels, reported HealthDay. While study authors are by no means saying that sugary beverages are healthier, these findings do suggest that people who drink artificially sweetened beverages should do so in moderation as part of a healthy diet. Here's what else happens when you cut artificial sweetener Continue reading >>
10 Things That Can Spike Your Blood Sugar
When you first found out you had diabetes, you tested your blood sugar often to understand how food, activity, stress and illness could affect your blood sugar levels. By now, you’ve got it figured out for the most part, right? But suddenly — BAM! Something makes your blood sugar zoom up. You try to adjust it with food or activity or insulin, and it dips low. You’re on that rollercoaster no one with diabetes wants to ride. Knowledge is power! Look out for these surprising triggers that can send your blood sugar soaring: 1 – Heat Extreme heat (in baths or hot tubs) can cause blood vessels to dilate, which makes insulin absorb more quickly and could lead to low blood sugar. 2 – Artificial sweeteners More research needs to be done, but some studies show that they can raise blood sugar. 3 – Coffee Even without sweetener, coffee can raise blood sugar, due to the caffeine. Some people are extra-sensitive to caffeine. 4 – Losing sleep Just one night of poor sleep can make your body use insulin less efficiently. 5 – Skipping breakfast Going without that morning meal can increase blood sugar after both lunch and dinner. 6 – Time of day The later it gets, the harder blood sugar can be to control. 7 – The “Dawn Phenomenon” People have a surge in hormones early in the morning, whether they have diabetes or not. For people with diabetes, this means blood sugar can spike. 8 – Dehydration Less water in your body means a higher blood sugar concentration. 9 – Nasal sprays Some sprays have chemicals that trigger your liver to release more sugar into your bloodstream. 10 – Gum disease It’s both a complication of diabetes and a cause for blood sugar spiking. Watch out for other triggers that can make your blood sugar spike. If an activity, food or situation Continue reading >>
How Do Fats & Proteins Affect Blood Sugar Levels?
After you eat, your blood sugar levels increase and trigger the release of insulin, an important hormone in managing how your body uses glucose. Different types of nutrients affect blood sugar differently, and maintaining an appropriate intake of carbohydrates, proteins and fats will help control blood sugar levels and prevent or manage metabolic diseases like Type 2 diabetes. Carbohydrates, proteins and fats are the three macronutrients your body needs. Carbohydrates are primarily used for energy, while proteins are important for rebuilding tissue, and fats are important for maintaining cell membranes and facilitating vitamin absorption, among other functions. Carbohydrates have the most significant impact on blood sugar, so carbohydrate intake should be monitored closely by individuals with or at risk for Type 2 diabetes. Protein's Effects on Blood Sugar Compared to carbohydrates, protein keeps blood sugar levels steady. When consumed alone, protein does not generate a rise in blood sugar. According to a study published in 2003 in “American Society for Clinical Nutrition,” individuals with Type 2 diabetes who maintained a 30:40:30 intake ratio of protein to carbohydrates to fat showed a 40 percent lower blood sugar response than those who maintained a 15:55:30 intake ratio. This suggests that protein is neutral food for blood sugar levels and can replace at least some carbohydrates to yield a better overall blood sugar response. Fat's Effects on Blood Sugar Like protein, fat has significantly less impact on blood sugar than carbohydrates. When consumed alone, ingested fats have no bearing on the concentration of circulating blood sugar. Replacing some carbohydrate content with healthy dietary fats could therefore result in steadier overall levels of blood sugar. M Continue reading >>
What To Do When Blood Sugar Spikes
It can be frustrating trying to keep blood sugar levels under control. Day by day, they can fluctuate widely, and they’re not always predictable. Although the greatest danger to people with diabetes is when blood glucose gets too low, it’s also important to take action when blood glucose is high. Thankfully, there are steps you can take to help prevent and treat these unexpected spikes. High blood sugar, also called hyperglycemia, often develops in response to too little insulin or other glucose-lowering medication, or too much food. It’s important to address hyperglycemia. Not only can it cause problems like impaired thinking in the short term, it can increase the risk for serious problems like heart disease, kidney damage, and blindness over time. Here’s what you can do about hyperglycemia. On top of tracking your diet and blood sugar, regular exercise is a key part of managing your diabetes. And while any exercise is better than none, certain activities have specific benefits for people with diabetes. 2017 Healthgrades Operating Company, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or reprinted without permission from Healthgrades Operating Company, Inc. Use of this information is governed by the Healthgrades User Agreement. Know Your Body Estimating how much your blood sugar will rise or fall in response to a specific meal or snack isn’t always easy. But you can better predict these fluctuations by investigating how your body reacts to food. Closely monitor your food intake, including your favorite foods and meals, for a week or two. If possible, check your blood glucose both before and after you eat. Keep a log of your results and review them to learn when your blood sugar is most likely to spike. Recognize the Symptoms Regularly monitoring your blood Continue reading >>
Are You Non-diabetic? Your After-meal Blood Sugar Spikes May Be Killing You Softly
Something millions of people don’t realize is that non-diabetics do experience blood glucose spikes after meals. Yes, non-diabetics get blood sugar highs believe it or not. They just don’t know it and this phenomenon has implications for your health. Your doctor won’t tell you how important your blood glucose control is as a non-diabetic. I will. The reason your doctor fails to tell you this is mainly because it is generally thought that until a diagnosis of diabetes is made, you are assumed to be metabolically competent. But that is not always the case. In actual fact, this is the reason why a lot of prediabetes cases are missed. Prediabetes is the abnormal metabolic stage before type 2 diabetes actually bites. And before the prediabetes stage, you also develop insulin resistance which is largely silent as well. Doctors don’t pay attention to metabolic health in a run-of-the-mill consultation even if the consultation is for a wellness overview. There are so many individuals with insulin resistance, prediabetes and frank type 2 diabetes walking around totally unaware they have any of those conditions. If only we paid just a little attention to our metabolic health, we could prevent millions of cases of type 2 diabetes raging around the globe like a wild summer forest fire. Do non-diabetics have blood sugar spikes? I often get asked about whether non diabetics have blood sugar highs i.e blood sugar spikes. The short answer is they do but there is a caveat there. Not every non diabetic does. It all depends on what I call metabolic competence along with other variables. Before I talk about the variables involved, let me draw your attention to this study carried in Ulm University in Germany. They recruited 24 healthy volunteers into the study and made them eat simil Continue reading >>
The Dangers Of Skipping Meals When You Have Diabetes
It's tempting -- and even sounds logical -- to skip meals: You're busy, you're not hungry, you're trying to lose weight, or your blood sugar is too high. Skipping meals, however, may actually increase your blood sugar and cause you to gain weight. Here are seven rewards of eating regularly scheduled meals when you live with diabetes. Reward 1: Improve fasting blood glucose numbers. During sleep, when you're not eating, the liver sends more glucose into the blood to fuel the body. For many people during the early years of having type 2 diabetes, the liver doesn't realize there is already more than enough glucose present. "Your morning (fasting) blood sugars have much more to do with your liver and hormonal functions than what you ate for dinner last night," says Kathaleen Briggs Early, Ph.D., RD, CDE, assistant professor of biochemistry and nutrition at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, Washington Get more information about why your morning blood sugar is high and tips to help control fasting blood sugar. Real-life example: Until recently, if Cheryl Simpson's blood glucose meter flashed a high reading before breakfast, she might delay eating until midafternoon in an attempt to lower that number. Now Cheryl, PWD type 2, won't leave home without eating breakfast. Her blood glucose numbers have improved. "Plus, eating breakfast makes it a whole lot easier to make good food choices later on," she says. Tip: Pack a grab-and-go breakfast with these 13 quick-fix ideas! Reward 2: Stay off the blood sugar roller coaster. Irregular eating can have you "bouncing back and forth between normal blood sugars and high blood sugars," Early says. A meager meal can give you a meager rise in blood sugar. If you take one or more blood glucose-lowering medications tha Continue reading >>
How Many Factors Actually Affect Blood Glucose?
A printable, colorful PDF version of this article can be found here. twitter summary: Adam identifies at least 22 things that affect blood glucose, including food, medication, activity, biological, & environmental factors. short summary: As patients, we tend to blame ourselves for out of range blood sugars – after all, the equation to “good diabetes management” is supposedly simple (eating, exercise, medication). But have you ever done everything right and still had a glucose that was too high or too low? In this article, I look into the wide variety of things that can actually affect blood glucose - at least 22! – including food, medication, activity, and both biological and environmental factors. The bottom line is that diabetes is very complicated, and for even the most educated and diligent patients, it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that affects blood glucose. So when you see an out-of-range glucose value, don’t judge yourself – use it as information to make better decisions. As a patient, I always fall into the trap of thinking I’m at fault for out of range blood sugars. By taking my medication, monitoring my blood glucose, watching what I eat, and exercising, I would like to have perfect in-range values all the time. But after 13 years of type 1 diabetes, I’ve learned it’s just not that simple. There are all kinds of factors that affect blood glucose, many of which are impossible to control, remember, or even account for. Based on personal experience, conversations with experts, and scientific research, here’s a non-exhaustive list of 22 factors that can affect blood glucose. They are separated into five areas – Food, Medication, Activity, Biological factors, and Environmental factors. I’ve provided arrows to show the ge Continue reading >>
- Postprandial Blood Glucose Is a Stronger Predictor of Cardiovascular Events Than Fasting Blood Glucose in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Particularly in Women: Lessons from the San Luigi Gonzaga Diabetes Study
- There’s Now More Evidence That Type 2 Diabetes Can Actually Be Reversed
- Diet drinks and food actually trigger weight gain and diabetes, says new study
Blood Sugar: What Causes High Blood Sugar Levels In The Morning
There are two reasons why your blood sugar levels may be high in the morning – the dawn phenomenon and the Somogyi effect. The dawn phenomenon is the end result of a combination of natural body changes that occur during the sleep cycle and can be explained as follows: Your body has little need for insulin between about midnight and about 3:00 a.m. (a time when your body is sleeping most soundly). Any insulin taken in the evening causes blood sugar levels to drop sharply during this time. Then, between 3:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m., your body starts churning out stored glucose (sugar) to prepare for the upcoming day as well as releases hormones that reduce the body's sensitivity to insulin. All of these events happen as your bedtime insulin dose is also wearing off. These events, taken together, cause your body's blood sugar levels to rise in the morning (at "dawn"). A second cause of high blood sugar levels in the morning might be due to the Somogyi effect (named after the doctor who first wrote about it). This condition is also called "rebound hyperglycemia." Although the cascade of events and end result – high blood sugar levels in the morning – is the same as in the dawn phenomenon, the cause is more "man-made" (a result of poor diabetes management) in the Somogyi effect. There are two potential causes. In one scenario, your blood sugar may drop too low in the middle of the night and then your body releases hormones to raise the sugar levels. This could happen if you took too much insulin earlier or if you did not have enough of a bedtime snack. The other scenario is when your dose of long-acting insulin at bedtime is not enough and you wake up with a high morning blood sugar. How is it determined if the dawn phenomenon or Somogyi effect is causing the high blood sug Continue reading >>
Controlling After-meal Blood Sugar Spikes
When blood sugar levels spike too high after eating and remain elevated for two hours, this presents a significant mortality risk factor.1 These kinds of surges in after-meal glucose (sugar) surges are associated with prediabetes and diabetes.2,3 Reducing after-meal glucose levels has the potential to help prevent many common aging disorders. Elevated glucose not only promotes vascular disease, but is associated with an increased risk of dementia, cancer, worse outcomes in those stricken with cancer—and even accelerated aging.4-15 Researchers have found that an increased 2-hour postprandial (after-meal) glucose level is an independent risk predictor for cardiovascular and all-cause death.1 During this postprandial period, blood sugar spikes can acutely impair blood flow through vital arteries,16 which can ultimately lead to heart attack or stroke. Fortunately, published studies have identified three natural agents that can safely impede glucose absorption, reduce glucose over-production in the liver, and enhance clearance of excess glucose from the bloodstream.17-21 Glucose Spikes Boost Heart Attack Risk After-meal surges in blood sugar directly impair the arteries’ ability to respond to the heart’s demand for an immediate increase in blood flow.22,23 This is one reason that diabetics have such a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease.24 But even if you don’t have diabetes, a “normal” fasting blood sugar measurement doesn’t protect you against the harmful effects of an after-meal glucose spike.22,23,25,26 People who have normal fasting glucose, but fail a measurement of blood sugar two hours after a meal are diagnosed with “impaired glucose tolerance.” Their risk for cardiovascular disease rises sharply, which correlates with the inability of their Continue reading >>
Is It Good To Do Morning Exercise Before Eating?
Once you get up in the morning there has been a considerable gap in eating, varying from 6 to 10 hours. For exercise body requires fuel, which is most readily available in form of carbohydrates. Normally the reserves stored in the body are adequate for about 30 min equivalent of effort. Thus if you are doing some light exercise like walk of 20 min or yoga for 30 min there is no need to eat anything in the morning. If the exercise is going to be longer than 30 min & of a more intense nature then it is better to eat a fruit, like banana about 45 min prior to exercise. Personally I advocate consuming good amount of water and eating a fruit early in the morning to: Raise your metabolic rate. Prevent acidity. Provide fuel for the exercise. Why I do not favor the standard Indian bed tea with 2 biscuits: It is acidic. It spikes the blood sugar level, which depletes also quickly in 25–30 min. Fruit, having a lower glycemic index, releases sugar slowly and steadily in the blood stream for a longer duration. There is no spike or trough in the blood sugar level. (No wonder you see Nadal eating a banana during the course of a long match). Continue reading >>
