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Clarification from Stavia on Blood Sugar

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 10:20 am
by rep
Stavia said
20% calories from protein is very mainstream advice because of gluconeogenesis. The human body cannot store excess dietary protein in the form of protein ie more than what is needed every day. The average protein requirement is around say 1 gram per kg for simplicity sake. The excess you eat is converted by your liver to glucose....and then what you cannot burn of that glucose is then stored as fat! So its shortsighted to eat more protein than your requirements and satiation. If you need more protein to stay full then you will need to swap out some of your carbs instead. Because thats what the protein excess will end up as in your body after 4 to 6 hours.
So, when I eat excess protein would it show up as an elevated blood glucose level the next morning?

Stavia - Also, I usually completely avoid sugar and am careful not to overeat. Last night I went out to dinner to with friends and loosened my diet. I had two bites of my husbands sweet dessert and this morning my blood glucose was 116. Is my overall insulin resistance really better if just two bites of something sweet can put me in pre-diabetes territory the next morning? It seems that as long as I don't have any sugar my blood glucose is normal, but that my body hasn't gotten any better at processing sugar when I do eat it. Can pre-diabetes really be reversed? ... Or, just controlled?

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 12:40 pm
by Stavia
Very good question honey.
Firstly, a few hours of higher glucose once a month IMO won't undo all the good you are doing. Its not the end of the world, those two bites, you havent doomed yourself I promise.
And unfortunately yes your body is less able to process glucose loads than some other people because you clearly have the genes for diabetes.. BUT heaps better than it was a few months ago. You just dont know what the glucose fingerprick levels were say a year ago because you werent measuring them. Ill bet you were spiking to 130 before you did all your excellent hard work.
So the answer is prediabetes can be usually controlled by several factors (diet weight loss excercise medication) and not always permanently reversed. There will obviously be exceptions depending on the contribution obesity had on an individual. I think its too soon to tell with you. Youre half way through your work.
Why dont you try a test dose of desert again in a few months?

As an extra - those on a very low carb ketogenic diet do temporarily lose insulin sensitivity but a few days of refeeding does reverse this and they regain insulin sensitivity. This is called physiological insulin insensitivity and a different mechanism to yours. Their first few meals of carbs going off this diet spikes their glucose to high levels but then it settles after about 3 days. I wonder if you are in ketosis now and this contributed to the spike. But I suspect not, your HbA1c and fasting insulin arent low enough for this to be a player. Just mentioning this in case someone else brings it up.
But it doesnt matter. The main thing is to keep going honey. You are doing amazingly

Re: Clarification from Stavia on Blood Sugar

Posted: Sat Apr 04, 2015 7:46 pm
by GenePoole0304
as you get older you break down protein less efficiently so you then require more...
if you read more.. something around 16% of cal from protein has remained constant in the diet. one can eat to 30% or more for periods. also dependent on activity level.. from couch potato if we have time for this forum it is on the dark side and not mountain moving man/woman.
it is all about controlling BG not protein. so don t sweat it. eat real food not too many chocolate Easter eggs you all know that.
burp..

Re: Clarification from Stavia on Blood Sugar

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 6:46 am
by KatieS
Rep, this week I tested my BG response after two slices of 100% rye bread and disappointingly discovered that I still have those spikes. IMHO IR does not completely resolve. I'm aiming for a A1c low like yours, mine is stuck at 5.5 despite rigorous control for decades. If we were typical, we would become diabetic, but we're not. Don't despair, my 97 y/o 3/4 mom battles (didn't she win? :D ) the same dilemma.

Re: Clarification from Stavia on Blood Sugar

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:58 pm
by Tincup
rep,

I'll let Stavia critique my non-medical understanding but here goes:

In the morning, say around 4AM, your liver starts making glycogen to get your body ready for the day (the dawn phenomenon). Your glucose level is an indicator of how well your pancreas handles this increased glucose. My and other's experience is that if you are somewhat IR, if you have a more carby day the day before, your morning glucose readings will be higher. This may be that your phase 1 insulin response (from stored insulin) has been degraded from responding to the carbs the day before) and the phase 2 (real time insulin production) can't quite keep up. Perhaps liver and pancreatic fat are at issue.

Solution is to keep your post meal sugars as flat as possible.

And for a completely different idea on a solution:

In this newsletter they describe very low calorie, short term approaches to reverse T2 diabetes. The idea is to replicate the outcome (from a diabetes standpoint) of bariatric surgery, without the surgery.
(start on p 3). http://www.yourhealthbase.com/archives/ihn242.pdf
p 8... http://www.yourhealthbase.com/archives/ihn250.pdf
p 1, 2...http://www.yourhealthbase.com/archives/ihn251.pdf

Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2015 5:04 pm
by Stavia
Correct George. Your grasp of biochemistry is superb.
Another way of looking at it is that Rep went to sleep at a higher glucose level than usual, so didn't drop to her usual basal glucose reading as usual. ie dropped the same amount, the same hormone players did their hormonally thingies including cortisol insulin etc, but she started off higher the night before so didnt drop to her usual nadir on waking.
This is how we titrate exogenous insulin doses, we also look at the meal response before the meal that shows a spike.

Correct - keep glucose flat. If you gonna do something to spike it, go exercise to burn it off.