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How to stabilise blood sugar?

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
I think the best way to diagnose is usually thought to be a fasting glucose, and then a post-breakfast glucose on the same day. All sorts of weird stuff can effect fasting glucose, so it's not particularly reliable by itself.

That's what they do in the 2 hr glucose Tolerance test (2hr GTT). Fasting glucose is taken.. then either they give glucose or one has breakfast.. and then more bloods are done half hourly to see how body reacts to glucose or the meal.

2hr GTT can be done with or without the insulin levels tested too (usually doctors need to request the insulin to be done at same time or otherwise labs just look at the glucose levels and hence then miss is a person has abnormal insulin results.. abnormal levels of insulin not only show up a prediabetic state (in which then diet needs to be taken care of to prevent diabetes) but can also cause bouts of hypoglycemia so its good to know if insulin is acting normally or not.

Having bloods taken for the full time period is the best as some have delayed abnormalities to carbs.
 

August59

Daughters High School Graduation
Messages
1,617
Location
Upstate SC, USA
I just looked up the drugs your "doctor" is giving you, and they are both for type II diabetes. They probably aren't helping much because you probably don't have type II. And even type II's sometimes NEED insulin.

I really really think you need to resolve this immediately.

And then consider suing your doctor. Or at least find one with a brain.

Once the endo got my med levels up to where they should be, got my testosterone levels up because they had dropped to 91 and bumped my thyroid meds a little everything is going well. Actually a little too well as i had to cut my diabetes meds back a little because my morning levels (fasting) were dropping into the 60's and I didn't like that feeling at all either. My eyesight is back to exactly what it was before diabetes onset.
 

triffid113

Day of the Square Peg
Messages
831
Location
Michigan
Fasting glucose - by fast merely meaning taken before you eat in the morning after not having eaten all night - is very important because it can tell you the state of glycation going on in your body. Fasting blood sugar should be 80. 85 or higher means you are destroying your body proteins with too much sugar. If it is 140 or more you are diabetic. But do not kid yourself - it is bad if it is over 85 ... consider that the fragile kidney tubules are protein and in diabetics - they GO.

Yes, how you eat affects it. That is the whole point. It is a measure of how you eat as regads to controlling your blood sugar. You eat your normal diet and you test. If your normal diet is not keeping your blood sugar where it should be, then time to adjust the diet!

Trif

Yes, I have had the glucose tolerance test in the past but for low blood sugar. Never had insulin measured, know it is high as it causes low blood sugar. Guggul is supposed to lower insulin. I take two products from iherb now that prevent low blood sugar (one contains guggul). There are a bazillion herbal and food items that lower blood sugar. Low teststerone is implicated in diabetes in men. idk if taking it reverses diabetes but I'll bet it does so watch that. Diabetes runs in my family, I had it twice under stress, but I am fine now. My fasting sugar is 83, consistently.

Your breakfast will cause blood sugar problems -- how much protein is there in Marmite? Next to none, right? You need 20g protein at breakfast.
 

Calathea

Senior Member
Messages
1,261
Marmite is 89% protein, and there is plenty of protein in wholemeal bread as well. There was a huge amount of protein in that breakfast. As for assuming that I need 20g protein at breakfast, are you assuming that I'm on a 2000 calorie diet? I weigh 100lb, I can't eat anything near that unless I want to put on weight rapidly. I'm eating the recommended amount of protein for my height (4'11) and weight. This breakfast was also a one-off before surgery, and it was all I could face after having to be woken up from sleep for it, and then go back to sleep afterwards. I also make breakfast a relatively small meal, as this fits best with my personal bodily rhythms, so it provides fewer calories, protein and so forth than my later meals do. Don't assume that everyone should have a large breakfast: in many cases it merely leads to unwanted weight gain, as has been shown by research. My theory is that it seems to go with body clock types, with night owls naturally being small breakfasters (if they breakfast at all).

I can't remember who suggested that I might have had fruit juice on my finger contaminating the results, but it's looking likely that this is what happened. I spoke to my GP and she said that she's tested my blood sugar countless times and it's never been anything like that. She's going to look into this to be on the safe side, though, she's very thorough. The nurse who took that fingerstick test should have flagged it up properly as a problem at the time, and at the least repeated the test or told a doctor that I might have undiagnosed diabetes. She did neither. The nursing staff were generally not the best at that hospital, and I'm going to be making a complaint about them once I have the energy.
 

triffid113

Day of the Square Peg
Messages
831
Location
Michigan
Oh, well, if it was mechanical test error then that's what it was. I am not saying anything about a 1 day pre-operation diet, only about a long term dietary strategy to stabilize blood sugar. I am not saying to eat a lot of protein, only to pull more protein forward in the day to stabilize blood sugar if you have sugar issues (as I do and I have used this method all my life to good effect). I read about the studies proving this would work in the now out-of-print book "Let's Get Well" by nutritionist Adele Davis. I still have my copy of the book. It was my first Bible. Dr. Julian Whittaker (who wrote Reversing Diabetes and maintains a diabetes recovery clinic in California) also uses this method.

Protein is slow to digest so that for the bulk of the day any carbs you eat will also be slowed down and your blood sugar stabilized. The American Diabetic Assoc has recommended doing this for years (well they use protein to stabilize blood sugar -- they don't spell it out so specifically as this though. My family is loaded with diabetics so I've grown up knowing this stuff). Now there is a group out of Australia who studied the glycemic index of food and how it relates to blood sugar in the body (it is beyond just the index of the food) and they find that acid also slows digestion so that adding apple cider vinegar to your salad will help stabilize blood sugar also. In fact, they cited two meals which seemed exactly the same but which had a vastly different effect on blood sugar: the only difference in the breakfasts was whether regular toast was consumed or sourdough (the sourdough being acidic). There are many substances that lower blood sugar. The strongest one is alpha lipoic acid. But there are milder ones too, such as fenugreek tea.

I don't really remember the whole thread, like exactly what is being asked here. But I do know a lot about blood sugar. I have been diabetic twice and cured myself. I forget what my A1C was, but it's perfect and all my fasting blood tests turn up 83. Life Extension says values above 85 means that glucose is glycating your body proteins and it is important to get this down even if you are not technically diabetic. I was surprised to see how many people (most people that get blood tests with them) have fasting blood sugars above 100 yet are not technically diabetic. It is very common apparently.
Trif