What Should My Blood Sugar Be For Type 2 Diabetes

A Bananas Effect On Blood Sugar Depends On Its Ripeness

Yellow, or ripe, bananas contain less resistant starch than green bananas, as well as more sugar, which is more quickly absorbed than starch.

This means fully ripe bananas have a higher GI and will cause your blood sugar to rise faster than green unripe bananas .

Summary

Green bananas contain resistant starch, which doesnt raise blood sugar levels and may improve long-term blood sugar management. Yellow bananas contain more sugar, so they may cause a bigger rise in blood sugar.

Recommended Reading: Which Cells Produce Hormones To Regulate Blood Sugar

What Abnormal Results Mean

If you had a fasting blood glucose test:

• A level of 100 to 125 mg/dL means you have impaired fasting glucose, a type of prediabetes. This increases your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
• A level of 126 mg/dL or higher usually means you have diabetes.

If you had a random blood glucose test:

• A level of 200 mg/dL or higher often means you have diabetes.
• Your provider will order a fasting blood glucose, A1C test glucose tolerance test , depending on your random blood glucose test result.
• In someone who has diabetes, an abnormal result on the random blood glucose test may mean that the diabetes is not well controlled.

Other medical problems can also cause a higher-than-normal blood glucose level, including:

• Overactive thyroid gland

• Weight loss after weight loss surgery
• Vigorous exercise

Some medicines can raise or lower your blood glucose level. Before having the test, tell your provider about all the medicines you are taking.

For some thin young women, a fasting blood sugar level below 70 mg/dL may be normal.

Tips For Tracking Your Blood Sugar Patterns And Using Your Results

Here are some great tips:

Have a blood sugar chart on your phone or a written notebook nearby to compare your numbers

For my patients during the class entitled, Monitoring your Blood Glucose, I pass out individual notebooks, and packs of different colored highlighter pens for pattern management. Inside, there are copies of an enhanced blood sugar log.

Patients log their blood sugars at different times of the day, and color-code them with highlighters. This helps patients to pick out their blood sugar patterns, and to do different things to adjust their blood sugars to get them in a target range.

Patients may either take a walk following a high carbohydrate meal, take more insulin if they are correcting blood sugar with insulin, decrease the amount of carbohydrates at the next meal, etc. By seeing what their blood sugars are at different times of the day, they can work their blood sugars into their target ranges. Once blood sugars are in the target range, their A1C should also be on target.

I have included a copy of the enhanced blood sugar log that I use to make a pattern notebook for my patients. Readers here at TheDiabetesCouncil are welcome to copy the form for their own use in self-managing their diabetes. You can also download our comprehensive log book here.

Phone Apps

Also Check: How Much Sugar In Eggs

What Are Normal Blood Sugar Levels After Eating

Sugar is your body’s main source of energy. During digestion, carbohydrates are turned into glucose. Your body can use glucose for energy, or store whatever it doesn’t use in your cells for later.

Your blood sugar level is influenced by the food you eat, your age, stress, physical activity, smoking, and alcohol use. Your blood sugar can also be affected by heart conditions and diabetes.

If you want to get an idea of what your normal blood sugar levels are, you’ll need to check them. Your provider might want you to check at different times of the day, but you can start by checking your blood glucose levels one to two hours after eating.

Seeing what your blood sugar is after a meal or snack can help you better understand how your levels are affected by the food you eat as well as when you eat.

If you have diabetes, checking your blood sugar regularly helps you figure out if you’re taking the right dose of insulin .

As a general rule, your blood sugar level should be below 180 mg/dL one to two hours after you start eating a meal or snack.

However, your target blood sugar range will depend on:

Levels In The Morning

The best time to check blood sugar levels in the morning is right when you wake up and before you eat anything. This gives you a glimpse of what may be happening overnight, and it gives you a baseline for the day.

These are goal levels, according to The Joslin Diabetes Center:

• Under 70 mg/dl if you do not have diabetes.
• 70 to 130 mg/dl if you have diabetes.

The dawn effect can often lead to a high morning measurement in diabetes. This is your bodys tendency to get ready for the day by raising blood sugar by increasing levels of counter-regulatory hormones the ones that counteract insulin as in normal blood sugar. For people with diabetes, you do not have the capacity to counterbalance this rise in blood sugar, so levels can be dangerously high.

Ways to lower your morning blood sugar value include:

• Eating dinner earlier
• Checking your medications making sure you are taking them properly and asking your doctor if they are correct
• Going for a walk after dinner

Recommended Reading: Type 2 Diabetes Dry Mouth

Recommended Reading: What Should Blood Sugar Be

Who Should Take Vitamin D

Its still too early to say for sure that vitamin D supplements can make a big difference for all or most children with type 1 diabetes, but the supplements are inexpensive and safe so theres no real downside.

I believe that all children should have their vitamin D levels checked with a simple blood test. The test is especially important for children with type 1 diabetes. If they have less than 50 nmol/L , they should start taking a supplement. This is good advice for all kids, not just those with diabetes.

Kids under 10 can take up to 1,000 international units a day, and older kids can take 2,000 IU. They should have their levels checked again in six to eight weeks to make sure theyre reaching healthy levels. There are two types of vitamin D supplements, D3 and D2, but they both seem to work equally well.

What Causes Low Blood Glucose In People With Diabetes

Low blood glucose levels can be a side effect of insulin or some other medicines that help your pancreas release insulin into your blood. Taking these can lower your blood glucose level.

Two types of diabetes pills can cause low blood glucose

• sulfonylureas, usually taken once or twice per day, which increase insulin over several hours
• meglitinides, taken before meals to promote a short-term increase in insulin

The following may also lower your blood glucose level

You May Like: Is There Sugar In Smirnoff Ice

You May Like: How To Stop Eating Too Much Sugar

Do I Need To Check If My Blood Sugar Level Is Normal

If you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, tracking your blood sugar regularly will help you understand how medication, food, and physical activity affect it. Checking your blood glucose level also gives you the chance to see when it’s rising and take action to correct it.

Managing your blood sugar levels is the most important thing you can do to prevent complications from diabetes, like blindness, heart attacks, amputation, kidney disease, and stroke.

Others who may want to track their blood glucose regularly include people:

How Does Vitamin D Make It Easier To Control Blood Sugar

Vitamin D is known to reduce inflammation. We believe that could be the key: It may be that by protecting beta cells from harmful inflammation, vitamin D gives them a chance to produce more insulin on their own. In the study, the group receiving vitamin D had lower levels of a compound thats a sign of inflammation, so that gives us an important clue.

Recommended Reading: What Is The Safest Alternative To Sugar

How To Stay In Target

Eating healthy, exercising and taking medication, if necessary, will help you keep your blood sugar levels within their target range. Target ranges for blood sugar can vary depending on your age, medical condition and other risk factors.

Targets are different for pregnant women, older adults and children 12 years of age and under.

You May Like: Number Of Grams Of Sugar Per Day For Diabetic

How To Reduce Your Risk Of Type 2 Diabetes In 3 Simple Steps

In just three years, in 2025, the World Health Organisation has estimated that there will be 300million people living with type 2 diabetes.

In fact, last year, in 2021, while COVID took the lives of more than 3.3 million people, type 2 diabetes accounted for 7 million lives.

In China today, 1 in 10 people have either type 1 or type 2 diabetes.

That helps to put things into perspective a bit!

Diabetes is a major problem and unfortunately, despite all that conventional medicine has to offer, we are just not getting better.

So lets unpack type 2 diabetes.

Imagine, youve just indulged in a delicious, sugar-filled doughnut. Your salivary and digestive enzymes have broken the donut down, and the sugar molecules are now racing around your bloodstream. Your body mainly uses glucose for energy, but in order for it to be utilised, your pancreas responds to the circulating glucose, by secreting a hormone called insulin.

Over time, insulin resistance tends to get worse, and the pancreatic beta cells that make insulin can wear out. Eventually, the pancreas no longer produces enough insulin to overcome the cells’ resistance. The result? Higher blood glucose levels, and ultimately prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.

Don’t Miss: How Many Carbs And Sugar Can You Have On Keto

You Are Leading An Active Lifestyle

Type 2 diabetes: when to check blood sugar for athletes and active people? Its said that activity helps control blood sugar levels and fight the disease. Your body becomes sensitive to insulin, and you may need more checkups when leading an active lifestyle. Its better to consult your doctor on this issue.

How Can You Get Vitamin D

Vitamin D is so important that the body has developed a way to make it without the need for supplements or even food. All it takes is the power of sunlight. Kids will make at least some vitamin D on their own when sunlight touches their skin. Its just one more reason why kids should spend time playing outdoors.

Vitamin D can also be found in fortified milk and orange juice, some fortified cereals, egg yolks and fatty fish such as tuna and salmon.

Even so, many kids in the US fall short. A nationwide survey conducted in 2014 found that 28% of kids aged 12 to 19 and 13.7% of kids aged 6 to 11 had less-than-optimal levels of vitamin D.

Some kids are more likely to be low in vitamin D than others. Children who are overweight are especially likely to be low in D. Kids with dark skin are also likely to be low on D, because the melanin in dark skin blocks much of the sunlight that the body needs to make the vitamin on its own. Kids who live in northerly places where the sun is relatively scarce for months at a time places like New York City, Boston or Seattle are also at risk.

Kids with type 1 diabetes are especially likely to be low in D, possibly because the disease makes it harder for their bodies to process the nutrient. A 2020 study of nearly 400 kids with the disease found that 64% were short on D, including 4% who were extremely low.

Also Check: What Will Lower Blood Sugar Fast

What Did Your Research Find

Our study included 36 young people, 10 to 21 years old, who were newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Half of them, chosen at random, took vitamin D supplements for a year while the other half took a placebo pill that didnt contain any vitamin D. At the end of the year, the subjects who took vitamin D had significantly lower levels of A1c, a standard measurement that shows how well blood sugar has been controlled in the last three months. After one year, the average A1c of the vitamin D group was 7.6%, while those taking a placebo had an average A1c of 8%. In other words, the young people receiving vitamin D seemed to have an advantage.

How Can I Manage The Results

According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the best way to manage your type 2 diabetes and blood sugar results are by creating an effective diabetes care plan, which often includes:

Also Check: What’s The Lowest Your Sugar Level Should Be

Type 2 Diabetes And Blood Sugar Levels

Type 2 diabetes prevents glucose sugar from entering your body’s cells to properly use for energy. Insulin is a hormone released by your pancreas , which helps glucose get into your cells to carry out body functions.

However, in those with type 2 diabetes, the cells become resistant to insulin. This makes it more difficult for the glucose in your bloodstream to get into the cells to provide your body with the energy it needs for many of its functions. This can lead to high levels of sugar in your blood that can’t get into your cells, which over time may result in dangerous health consequences.

To Check Or Not To Check

Ultimately, while the researchers mentioned here found that blood glucose monitoring had no effect on the A1Cs of those with type 2 who did not take insulin, they hope that their findings will inspire both adults with diabetes and providers to regularly engage in conversations about the question.

If you currently monitor, you shouldnt stop doing so without first consulting your physician.

And while its the rare person who would choose to monitor if a doctor deemed it unnecessary, its ultimately very individual. In the end, patient-centric care matters most.

Recommended Reading: How Can I Lower Blood Sugar Fast

Ideal Blood Sugar Levels For Type 2 Diabetes

In this post, we talk about the ideal blood sugar levels for type 2 diabetes. Blood sugar levels or blood glucose levels is the amount of blood sugar in your body. When you understand the normal blood sugar level ranges you can better manage your diabetes. The ranges stated on this post are as recommended by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence . However, your target range as advised by your doctor or health professional may be different.

For most healthy people, the normal blood sugar levels are:

• Fasting : between 4.0 to 5.4 mmol/L
• 2 hour after eating: Up to 7.8 mmol/L

Type 2 And Blood Glucose Checks

Blood glucose checks are a routine part of diabetes self-management, but for the nearly 75% of Americans with diabetes who dont take insulin, research suggests those checks might not be necessary.

But dont toss out your blood glucose meter and your test strips just yet. The question of whether routine self-monitoring of blood glucose has value remains unsettled. And it leads to other questions. For example: Even if self-monitoring does prove to be unnecessary for many adults with type 2 diabetes not on insulin, might there still be people in this group who would benefit or circumstances that would require self-monitoring?

You May Like: Are Sugar Snap Peas Allowed On Keto

Creating A Blood Sugar Testing Schedule

There should be a clear blood sugar testing schedule. It will help you stay organized with your procedures. And following a plan will make it easier to adjust the doses to feel better in the long run. The plan should be based on your health condition and the recommendations from the doctor.

What Are The Different Types Of Diabetes

The types of diabetes are:

• Type 1 diabetes: This type is an autoimmune disease, meaning your body attacks itself. In this case, the insulin-producing cells in your pancreas are destroyed. Up to 10% of people who have diabetes have Type 1. Its usually diagnosed in children and young adults . It was once better known as juvenile diabetes. People with Type 1 diabetes need to take insulin every day. This is why it is also called insulin-dependent diabetes.
• Type 2 diabetes: With this type, your body either doesnt make enough insulin or your bodys cells dont respond normally to the insulin. This is the most common type of diabetes. Up to 95% of people with diabetes have Type 2. It usually occurs in middle-aged and older people. Other common names for Type 2 include adult-onset diabetes and insulin-resistant diabetes. Your parents or grandparents may have called it having a touch of sugar.
• Prediabetes: This type is the stage before Type 2 diabetes. Your blood glucose levels are higher than normal but not high enough to be officially diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.
• Gestational diabetes: This type develops in some women during their pregnancy. Gestational diabetes usually goes away after pregnancy. However, if you have gestational diabetes youre at higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes later on in life.

Less common types of diabetes include:

Diabetes insipidus is a distinct rare condition that causes your kidneys to produce a large amount of urine.

Recommended Reading: What Is Your Normal Sugar Level Supposed To Be