Why don't people test for blood sugar?
 

After a long LC absence, and getting back into it, it seems like negotiating a minefield with all the new stuff out there. Wonderment and debates about what is LC and what is fluff or BS.

I've seen some posts regarding specific foods, which were deemed as "probably okay" because someone's friend who is a diabetic tested their blood sugar after eating product A, and had a minimal rise in blood glucose, and this was taken as some evidence of the minimal impact on our LC diets.

So, my questions are:

1. Would blood suguar measurements be a good definitive quick way to rule out foods for an individual? That is to say, a lot of people do fine on Dreamfields pasta, or Atkins bars and Ice Cream, but some don't. Can I eat it, test blood sugar, and if I have a minimal rise determine it is then fine for me?

2. If yes, then why doesn't anyone test themselves? Expense? The testers can be had for $20, and while the strips are expensive at about .50 a piece, I imagine a box of 50 could get you results on any food you had questions about. For less than $50 you could get a lot of questions answered quickly, instead of waiting days to see if you stalled.

3. Was this a stupid question? :lol: :q:

sounds like a good q to me. i wonder though, is blood sugar what matters? I've been reading recently that the GI scale and such is a load of crap with no influence on weight gain.

I think that for most people, the blood sugar measurement would not be meaningful. Non-Type 1 diebetics release insulin which controls the blood sugar to low levels. I think what you really would need to look at is the insulin response generated by the food to be analysed.

I'm not sure the information is all that useful, might be fun to play with though. Then there's the issue of drawing blood and pricking yourself. I'm assuming that's still how it work, isn't it? I remember when I was in school and we had to intentionally prick ourselves to get blood to test our blood types. I think I stared at that lancet for most of the class before I finally was able to poke myself hard enough to draw blood. :p

Plus from what I've read, you'd have test several times rather than just once. The blood sugar response could come later than normal with some of these foods.

because after pricking your finger numerous times it gets tender and it's really hard to jam the lancet in. Plus replacement lancets can cost as much or more as the origional meter did :P

I've found that I get pretty accurate results just by seeing if the ol' cravings and hunger comes back.

i think it depends on ur level of insulin impairment. if u r one of the lucky people without insulin resistance or hyperinsulinimia, a bg monitor might show very little in my opinion. it is when ur body and or pancreas starts to fail that you see inappropriate bg responses. for me being hyper insulinimic, my body produces as much as 10x the insulin a normal person does in order to get my muscle and fat cells to recognize the insulin and be able to control my bg responses to food. so even tho my bgs are only borderline high right now...if i don't control them with low carb eating, they will soon turn high. i am at the point where i do see responses to food items. when i'm testing an item i do hourly tests to 4 hours. if it makes me spike more than 10pts, i cut it out. dr bernstein (metabollic doctor) talks about keeping post prandial spikes to under 20-25pts. he wants an ideal pp reading to be as close to "zero" as possible. but i don't know that most people without insulin impairment issues would see this kind of spike. i could be completely wrong tho. would be an interesting test for certain!

Wouldn't tell me any more than just eating the food
 

I can tell what's happening by whether or not I'm craving more food in a short time. Don't really care about the physiological details--could be sugar, insulin, something else not currently testable.

I used to sell those things. Pricked myself enough demoing in the MD's offices to last a lifetime, I hope.

What is a low carber's fasting blood glucose level?

Should be the same as anyone's
 

I think it's about 80?

I've tested 80-90mg/dl four times since I started low-carbing. Didn't seem to matter if I was at 10g carb/day or 50g carb/day. My last test before I started low-carbing was 116mg/dl, which is still good but outside the normal range.

Thanks, this is about what I expected. So we can make the glucose we need from protein. And more importantly, low carb does not mean we are abnormally low in blood glucose.

Now off to find out if our brains can, in fact, utilize ketone bodies as a fuel source. Any references, anybody?

There was a study I read about that proved not only could the brain use keotenes, but it worked more efficiently that way. I think I had found it on the Atkins site, but I havn't been able to find it again in the last few months so I can't point directly to it.

Like you said in the above post our body does produce glucose through protien. This is also enough to run the brain.

Btw pre LC my fasting blood sugar in the morning would be about 90. Then it would drop all day sometimes getting around 20-30 closer to night. Now it starts at 80-90 and stays within a closer range around about 70-110.

OK I did find an article that said they discovered that the brain could use ketones back in the 70's. Thanks.

And I take it, you had symptoms of hypoglycemia when your blood glucose dropped that low?