Intermittent Fasting In A Nutshell
Intermittent fasting is trendy these days. In a nutshell, the daily schedule of intermittent fasting calls for skipping breakfast, and pushing lunch back to 1 p.m. And yes, even if you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, you can fast, but there are a few things you should keep in mind.
The typical intermittent fasting schedule calls for skipping breakfast and not eating your first meal of the day until about 1 p.m. Then eating your normal days worth of calories between 1 p.m. and bedtime, creating an approximate fasting window of 16 hours, and an eating window of 8 hours.
Another common fasting schedule is to eat normally 5 to 6 days of the week and then fast for a full 24 hours once or twice per week.
What Is The Somogyi Effect
A second possible cause of high blood sugar levels in the morning is the Somogyi effect, sometimes also called rebound hyperglycemia. It was named after the doctor who first wrote about it.
If your blood sugar drops too low in the middle of the night while you are sleeping, your body will release hormones in an attempt to rescue you from the dangerously low blood sugar. The hormones do this by prompting your liver to release stored glucose in larger amounts than usual. But this system isnt perfect in a person with diabetes, so the liver releases more sugar than needed which leads to a high blood sugar level in the morning. This is the Somogyi effect.
Treating Low Blood Glucose If You Take Medicines That Slow Down Digestion
Some diabetes medicines slow down the digestion of carbohydrates to keep blood glucose levels from rising too high after you eat. If you develop low blood glucose while taking these medicines, you will need to take glucose tablets or glucose gel right away. Eating or drinking other sources of carbohydrates wont raise your blood glucose level quickly enough.
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Treating Low Blood Sugar
You are at risk of having a low blood sugar reaction if you:
- Skip or delay a meal or snack
- Take too much insulin or eat too few carbohydrates
- Exercise
- Drink alcohol, especially without eating carbohydrates
Check your blood sugar if you have any of these symptoms:
- Weakness and/or fatigue
If your blood sugar is less than 70 milligrams per deciliter :
- Eat 15 to 30 grams of carbohydrate
- Wait 15 minutes and then recheck your blood sugar
- If your blood sugar is still less than 100 mg/dl, take another 15 grams of carbohydrate and retest your blood sugar in another 15 minutes. Repeat if necessary.
Important: If you have frequent low blood sugars speak to your doctor. You may need changes in your medication and/or meal plan.
Low Blood Sugar Levels In Diabetes
People with diabetes can have low blood sugar levels because of the medicines they have to take to manage their diabetes. They may need a hormone called or diabetes pills to help their bodies use the sugar in their blood.
These medicines help take the sugar out of the blood and get it into the body’s cells, which makes the blood sugar level go down. But sometimes it’s a tricky balancing act and blood sugar levels can get too low.
People with diabetes need to keep their blood sugars from getting too highor too low. Keeping blood sugar levels in a healthy range means balancing when and what they eat, and when they exercise with when they take medicines.
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Diabetes Myths That Don’t Lower Blood Sugar
Nothing trumps a balanced meal plan, an active lifestyle, and diabetes medications as needed to keep your blood glucose levels in check. You might have considered other diabetes remedies to try to lower blood sugar. Find out what works and what you should avoid.
Skipping Meals
Skipping meals could potentially push your blood glucose higher. When you don’t eat for several hours because of sleep or other reasons, your body fuels itself on glucose released from the liver. For many people with type 2 diabetes , the liver doesn’t properly sense that the blood has ample glucose already, so it continues to pour out more. Eating something with a little carbohydrate signals the liver to stop sending glucose into the bloodstream and can tamp down high numbers.
Skipping meals can also lead to overeating, which can cause an increase in weight. And if you take certain diabetes medications that stimulate the body’s own insulin such as common sulfonylureas, or you take insulin with injections or a pump, you risk having your blood glucose drop too low when you skip or delay meals.
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Going Low-Carb
Eating Pasta Al Dente
Adding Diabetes Shakes and Bars to Meals
Sprinkling Cinnamon
Drinking Alcohol
Drinking Green Tea
Drinking Excessive Water
Splashing a Little Vinegar
Doubling Up on Diabetes Medicines
Exercising Instead of Sleeping
Sleeping Instead of Exercising
Taking Supplements
- Related:
Lack Of Physical Activity
Lack of physical activity can increase your blood sugar, as skeletal muscles are a main part of the body that uses glucose for energy or stores extra glucose as glycogen for later use. With low levels of physical activity, the muscles become inactive and do not remove glucose efficiently from the blood.
Regular exercise can help lower blood sugar levels by increasing the need for muscles to remove glucose from the blood to use for energy.
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Can Drinking A Lot Of Water Lower Your Blood Sugar Levels
Although feeling very thirsty is a symptom of a hyper, drinking a lot of water will not bring your blood sugar levels down. It will only help to reduce your risk of dehydration.
Its important that you take your diabetes medication to bring your blood sugar levels down. If you have consistently high blood sugar levels, you will need to follow the advice below and speak to your diabetes healthcare team.
What If I Have Severe Low Blood Glucose And Cant Treat Myself
Glucagona hormone that raises blood glucose levelsis the best way to treat severely low blood glucose. Available as an injection or a nasal spray, glucagon will quickly raise your blood glucose level. Your doctor can prescribe you a glucagon kit for use in case of an emergency.
If your blood glucose level drops very low, you wont be able to treat it by yourself. Be prepared to address severely low blood glucose by
- talking with your doctor or health care team about when and how to use a glucagon emergency kit. If you have an emergency kit, regularly check the date on the package to make sure it hasnt expired.
- teaching your family, friends, and coworkers when and how to give you glucagon. Tell them to call 911 right away after giving you glucagon or if you dont have a glucagon emergency kit with you.
- wearing a medical alert identification bracelet or pendant. A medical alert ID tells other people that you have diabetes and need care right away. Getting prompt care can help prevent the serious problems that low blood glucose levels can cause.
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When Blood Sugar Is Too Low
Glucose is a sugar that comes from the foods we eat, and it’s also formed and stored inside the body. It’s the main source of energy for the cells of our body, and is carried to each cell through the bloodstream. Our brains depend on glucose to function, even when we’re sleeping.
The is the amount of glucose in the blood. When these levels drop too low, it’s called hypoglycemia . Very low blood sugar levels can cause serious symptoms that need to be treated right away.
Surprising 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, youve got it figured out for the most part. But thenbam! Something makes your blood sugar zoom up. You try to adjust it with food or activity or insulin, and it dips really low. Youre on a rollercoaster no one with diabetes wants to ride.
Do you know all of these blood sugar triggers?
Knowledge is power! Look out for these surprising triggers that can send your blood sugar soaring:
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How Do I Treat Low Blood Glucose
If you begin to feel one or more symptoms of low blood glucose, check your blood glucose level. If your blood glucose level is below your target or less than 70 mg/dL, follow these steps
Glucose Meters Can Give False Readings
While physiologic reasons cause higher glucose readings, technical reasons can cause them, too. The US Federal Drug Administration allows home glucose monitors to have a variance of 15% in results. That means a reading of 100 mg/dl might actually be as low as 85 mg/dl or as high as 115, a huge variation!9
Dave Feldman, the software engineer who has cracked the Cholesterol Code, has blogged about his glucose meter variance, charting and taking pictures of his two glucose meters, measuring the same drop of blood. While he was expecting his blood glucose set point to be higher because of his long-term low-carb keto eating, he was surprised by the sometimes huge variation in results. He notes that whenever he gets an unexpected result, he takes three readings, all within a few minutes of each other, and then averages the result.
Other researchers have noted that false readings can be caused by pricking a finger for blood with hands that have minute traces of sugar or food Dehydration raises results, too. You should always wash your hands before testing, but some soaps have additives like honey or a fragrance that can linger on fingers and distort readings. As well, strips that are too hot or too cold, or other environmental conditions like high altitudes, can produce higher or lower readings. Even different lots of strips can produce different results on the same meter.
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What Causes Blood Sugar To Rise In Non
Dr. Danielle Weiss is the founder of Center for Hormonal Health and Well-Being, a personalized, proactive, patient-centered medical practice with a unique focus on integrative endocrinology. She enjoys giving lectures and writing articles for both the lay public and medical audiences. Dr. Weiss is Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.
High blood sugar or glucose, also called hyperglycemia, occurs when there is too much sugar in the blood. High blood sugar is the primary symptom that underlies diabetes, but it can also occur in people who dont have type 1 or type 2 diabetes, either because of stress or trauma, or gradually as a result of certain chronic conditions.
It is important to manage high blood sugar, even if you dont have diabetes, because elevated blood glucose can delay your ability to heal, increase your risk of infections, and cause irreversible damage to your nerves, blood vessels, and organs, such as your eyes and kidneys. Blood vessel damage from high blood sugar also increases your risk of heart attack and stroke.
Why Blood Sugar Levels Rise Overnight
When you go to bed, your blood sugar reading is 110, but when you wake up in the morning, it has shot up to 150. Why does this happen?
To understand how blood sugar levels can rise overnight without your eating anything, we have to look at where glucose comes from and where it goes while we sleep.
During the day, the carbohydrates we eat are digested into glucose and absorbed into the bloodstream. Some of this glucose goes to the liver, where it is stored for later use.
At night, while we are asleep, the liver releases glucose into the bloodstream. The liver acts as our glucose warehouse and keeps us supplied until we eat breakfast. The amount of glucose being used is matched by the amount of glucose being released by the liver, so blood sugar levels should remain constant.
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What Happens To Blood Sugar While You Sleep
Itâs tied to whether the hormone insulin, which removes glucose from the blood, is working the way itâs supposed to. Blood sugar levels surge while youâre sleeping, usually around 4 to 8 a.m. for someone with a normal sleep schedule. In a healthy person, insulin can handle the surge by telling muscle, fat, and liver cells to absorb the glucose from the blood, which keeps your levels stable.
For people who have diabetes or who are likely to get it, insulin canât do that job very well, so blood sugar levels will rise higher.
What About The Glycemic Index
Your daily carb total, spread steadily across the day, is one key to good blood sugar control. Some people also use the glycemic index , a rating of how individual foods raise blood sugar levels. Beans and whole-grain breads and cereals have a lower GI than white bread and regular pasta. Juice has a higher GI than whole fruit. Craving a high-GI food? Eat it along with a lower-GI choice to help control your levels.
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Monitoring Sugars Is Vital
When youre ill or just dont feel like eating much, its important to monitor your blood sugar levels more closely than ever. How often depends on whether you have Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes and what medications you take.
For Type 1 diabetes: Be sure to monitor your blood sugar before meals and before bedtime, typically four times per day, says Garvey.
Beyond that, check your blood sugars if you notice symptoms of low blood sugar. Those symptoms include:
- Anxiety.
- Weakness.
For Type 2 diabetes: If youre taking a sulfonylurea medication, check your blood sugars at least twice a day in the morning and at bedtime.
Its important to keep in mind that sulfonylureas may cause your blood sugar to drop during the day if you dont eat anything after taking your medication, Garvey says.
If your only treatment is metformin, you may not need to check your blood sugar more than once a day. This medication doesnt typically cause hypoglycemia.
Its important to be aware of the symptoms associated with low blood sugars, says Garvey. Be ready to check your blood sugar and eat or drink 15 grams of simple sugar such as glucose tablets or 4 ounces of juice to correct a low blood sugar if needed. This treatment is also recommended for Type 1 diabetes, she says.
What Causes Blood Glucose Levels To Rise
Food
Foods that contain the energy sources carbohydrates, fats, and protein have all been known as causes of immediate and definable spikes in blood glucose levels.
Carbohydrates
Of the three, carbohydrates have been found to affect blood glucose the most. Carbs with a higher glycemic index tend to cause the most rapid spikes in blood glucose. Plus, counting carbohydrates can be difficult, since getting the number wrong can affect blood glucose.
Fats
Fatty foods make those with diabetes more resistant to insulin. This means someone eating a fatty meal would need to take more insulin to cover the exact portion of food without the fat.
Protein
While protein typically has very little effect on blood glucose, in the absence of carbohydrates or insulin, it can raise blood glucose. Many individuals with diabetes who eat carb-free meals will take a bit of insulin to cover the difference.
Caffeine
Caffeine has been known to increase insulin resistance and also stimulate the release of adrenaline.
Alcohol
During alcohol consumption, the liver breaks down the alcohol and reduces its output of glucose into the bloodstream. This causes a drop in blood sugar levels. Mixers rich in carbohydrates like orange juice can be under-the-radar causes of blood sugar increases if the alcohol was consumed on an empty stomach.
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