My dietician told me that it would be a good idea to eat small meals more often to keep BG even throughout the day.
It seems to make sense that if one eats breakfast at 9 and nothing until 2 p.m., the body may throw out some glucose to prevent a low. I seem to have highs when I haven't eaten in a while, especially mornings after a night-long fast.
Plus, if I don't eat regularly, I can never manage to eat the suggested number of servings of veggies and fruit.
I agree with veester. In fact I have tested that on myself. If I wait more than 4 hours to eat then my blood glucose will start rising and by 6 hours is way too high. Add exercise (walking to do errands) and I go even higher. If I eat a small snack at the 4 hr mark with 10-15 gr carb and a little protein or fiber then my bg stays low.
cindy
Hi Dave,
Interesting post. I have a question. When I introduce a new food into my diet I usually check my glucose levels at 1/2 hour intervals after eating. Recently I added frozen cherries to my morning oatmeal and found that at the 1/2 hour point, my level was over 200. When I left them off the menu the next morning, the 1/2 hour level was 156. The glucose level goes down fairly rapidly after the 1st 1/2 hour. I am a type II and do not use meds - diet and excercise only. I just had an A1C done and it is 5.6. Should I stay away from the cherries?
Thanks,
Pam
Thanks Dave. That is exactly the kind of info I needed. The cherries did not have added sugar per the label but who really knows. They were sweet cherries. I'm going to try tart cherries next and see what happens. I used to added frozen blueberries and did not have a BG spike but a bout of diverticulitis has me watching seeds and such so I thought cherries would be a good substitute. Not all fruits are created equal in the glycemic world though.
Pam
I was recently diagnosed with type II diabetes because my fasting bg was 226. This was curious because I had monitored my bg for years and was always rock steady within low normal ranges. I was scripted with metformin but its effect was like getting hit in the back of my head with a sandbag. I began to question my diagnosis and experimented with my intake/testing. I was curious how my bg would rise without eating anything and learned about the liver glucogen cycle. Using pure reason (counter intuitive) when my bg was reaching 200 fasting I drank some orange juice and my bg dropped to 109! Why? Because eating introduced insulin into the blood stream. Not eating does not. This is why small meals are important, it keeps the indulin flowing.
It turns out that my high bg was being caused by taking beta blockers for my heart (atrial fibrillation). Apparently, blocking adrenal hormones to the heart did not block them from the kidneys and liver stimulating glucose release from the kidneys and liver but without a release of insulin. Now, when I take the beta blocker I take it with a meal so I associate the kick of liver glucose release with insulin release keeping my glucose in tolerable ranges.
One other thing; the muscles are the largest storage area for glucose in total volume. A little exercise goes a long way to deplete this storage area drawing glucose out of the blood for replenishment. Extreme exercise does the opposite causing the liver to pump out glucose to match the exercise level causing crash and burn bg scenarios. I have found that moderate exercise and more small meals work to control my bg without medication.
Mine is an induced type II condition which means my insulin production and insulin uptake/sensitivity are functional but that I have a stress related (catacholomine) mediated response to conditions that mimic type II diabetes. This does not indicate what is going on with anybody else’s condition. I was disheartened that my MD’s did not catch on to this until they were shoving drugs down my throat as a knee jerk response that nearly put me into coma. British drug guideline had lowered the use of the beta blocker atenolol to level 4 from level 1 because they recognized that it caused type II diabetes. When I told my girlfriend, a French trained surgeon, she responded that “all beta blockers do that” as if this was common knowledge. There was no such warning in the American contraindications list.
I have become fascinated by the study of glucose, glucagon, glycation, etc. and am evolving an opinion that what is known about type II diabetes is poor at best. Most of the scholarly articles that begin to address these issues are 6 months old or less indicating to me that incomplete diagnosis is rampant. I am now looking at type II diabetes as being another savings and loan/subprime mortgage invented crises where an epidemic condition is allowed to rise so a ‘cure’ can be mediated by the drug companies. It seems clear to me that any fat storage around the muscles should indicate that glucose is not being utilized in the muscles enough to satisfy the cyclic muscle depletion dynamic that should, by its shear volume, stabilize glucose for the whole body.
Stevia does not introduce sugar into the blood stream unlike sugar and fruit, which in turn automatically allows the body to control the blood sugar levels normally. This was confirmed by the research too. Consequently the tests prove that Stevia has no effect on hypoglycemia. I have been using Cid Botanicals Stevia and found it very useful for our sweetners and cooking needs. Check out at:www.cidbotnicals.com
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David,
If you've lost most of your second phase insulin response, the carbohydrates in low glycemic foods will release slowly all day long. So if you eat more carbs later, you may see a spike when the earlier carbs start to digest but you have used up all your insulin making capacity.
The less second phase insulin response, the more unpredictable highs you will see many hours after eating a "low glycemic" food.
Remember that the "low glycemic index" was established by testing people with intact second phase insulin response. Most long standing type 2s have little or no second phase insulin response left, so every gram of carb they eat WILL raise blood sugar. The only question is, "When?"
A very enlightening comment from Jenny.
We also eat a low glycemic breakfast, hulless barley. Glucose is low at lunch, then high around 4:00 PM.
Any ideas for resolving this problem?
For me, the solution is to either avoid eating carbs or to use meal-time insulin when I eat carbs.
I like R insulin (novalin or humlin R) because the activity curve fits slower digesting carbs better than Novolog does.
Nonsense (or at best total speculation) for the most part.
What leads to unpredictable blood sugar rises is glucogenesis, the production of glucose by your liver in response to a "starving" condition.
Well, I have had enough -out of the blue- highs that I agree that production of glucose by the liver in anticipation of more food is real for me.
What I find very interesting is the -out of the blue- lows. Or lower than I expect. I would like to know what causes that. It would be useful if it were repeatable. I tripped and fell into hash brown temptation yesterday and I was expecting a high day and instead in the early afternoon my BG was 80. And I know potatoes drive me wild. So why the low? I repeated the experiment and today I'm at 202 and so I have to get moving.
Sigh...
Can't help noticing your mention anduse of 'hulless' barley - how does it differ from 'pearled' barley? Has the former a lower glycemic index compared to the pearled form?
Pearl barleyis barley processed to remove its hull and bran.
Hulless barley refers to a type of barley in which the tough inedible outer hull is loosely adhered to the kernel. The outer hull is so loose, that when this barley is harvested in the field, the outer hull usually falls off. Processors often refer to this type of barley as "naked" barley. Hulless barley requires little to no processing to remove the tough inedible outer hull. Because this product requires minimal cleaning, most of the brand and endosperm is left intact and the germ is present.. You can buy Hulless barley from Bob's Red Mill.