Hey there Lisa....

I had one more question......I had posted a reply in the products forum to the Hershey's SF candies and needed your advice.
Since I still have this glucometer I decided to do a test on the effects of Lactitol sugar alcohol. I always had had Malitol in the past and found these SF Reese's PB cups, Hershey's candy bars that had Lactitol.
Anyway...I tested my Blood sugar at 10:20pm and it was 82. Then had 4 pieces of these PB cups.....tested half hour later and it read 74. Tested again after an hour eating them and it tested 75.
Does that mean that Lactitol does not affect my blood sugar and I can eat these without worry???
After doing these tests this weekend I found that my blood sugar went up 20-30 points after eating Malitol within a half hour.
What is your opinion?
Vicky

Well...if I got results like those when I tested, I'd say that they don't affect me. I might have tested again at the 2 or 3 hour mark to make sure that the fat in the item wasn't delaying a blood sugar rise but since you're not a diabetic, I'd say your results are accurate. Having said that, I'd still only use those products as an occasional treat. Even though Maltitol doesn't make my blood sugars spike, it still causes me to stall.
Different things will affect different people. Maltitol doesn't have much effect on my blood sugars, but Aspartame makes them bounce all over the place.
Fruit makes a lot of diabetics spike, even the lower GI ones, but I can have berrries and some melons (small amounts, mind you) and not get much reaction. Breakfast cereal, OTOH, even those with only a small amount of sugar like Cheerios will make my blood sugar go up 100 points or more.

Ok, interesting. This is the reason that I'm trying to understand these "sugar alcohols". I thought the reason things would make a person stall is because of the blood sugar rising and your body consuming more carbs than you thought you actually were.
But.....since you say Malitol doesnt effect your blood sugar and it STILL stalls you.....then I guess Im back to square one LOL.
I havent eaten enough sugar alcohols to figure out if they stall me because my weight loss is so sporatic....3 weeks and no weight loss....then 3-4 lbs....then the next week...another lb....then another 2-3 weeks, nothing.
I was hoping that because of my blood sugar not rising it was doing what the label said and not affecting me and that I COULD count them as 4 carbs per 5 pieces like it said.
OH WELL.....I tried!!!!! And these darn Reese's PB cups are sooooo goood!!
Thanks for your input.....I greatly appreciate it!!!!


Vicky

It's not actually the blood sugar rise that causes stalls, it's the insulin response and those test strips don't test that. In a non-diabetic, if you get an insulin response the worst thing that will happen is that your blood sugar might go a little lower than normal and you'll get hungry, but that excess insulin will tell your body "it's fat storage time" and the weight loss stalls.
The theory behind the bars not affecting your blood sugar is that if you don't have a blood sugar rise, you won't have an insulin response. The problem is that in a normal person, the body does a very good job of keeping blood sugars fairly stable. The only way to tell if you are having an insulin response (and how much is being produced) is to have circulating insulin levels drawn at specific time intervals after you eat something and that's a very expensive test that most doctors would not be willing to order for a non-diabetic patient.
Another issue is that, as I mentioned above, not everyone reacts to the same food the same way.
Instead of using the test strips to see if you can have those treats or not, how about letting the scale or tape measure decide for you? If you can continue to loose weight and/or inches and have the treats...good for you! If not, then maybe those are something to be saved for maintainance or used as an occasional treat.

Wow, Lisa, what an interesting post. I had to read it about 3 times before it sank in.

I've been under the mistaken notion that low blood sugar only happens after a spike. So insulin response and unstable blood sugars are 2 different things? Is that right?

Wanda

Low blood sugar can happen after a spike, but not always. It depends on how much insulin production the beta cells in your pancreas are still capable of producing. If the body can't produce enough insulin to lower the blood sugar after a meal or snack is eaten, blood sugar levels continue to rise. Low blood sugars can also occur when insulin production is more than what was needed for what you ate or not enough food was eaten in proportion to the amount of medication in the bloodstream.
In a non-diabetic person if blood sugar starts to drop and no carbohydrates have been eaten to bring it back up again, gluconeogenesis kicks in converting protein to glucose in the liver if there are no glycogen stores in the liver (the body goes for the glycogen stores first). This is a slow process, however and not like eating a meal or snack.
Unstable blood sugars can happen for different reasons, some of them the same mechanisms as above (too much insulin/not enough food, too much food/not enough insulin) or just because the body is going through a repeated cycle of high carb/elevated blood sugar/increased insulin production/blood sugar crash.

Hope this hasn't confused you totally!

Ok!!!
Im starting to understand this more and more. So, when I tested 82 before I ate these and then did another test half hour later and it was 74.....is the drop because I DID have an insulin response? Exactly what I dont want, right?
Vicky

Well....

here's the tricky part. Insulin is released whenever we eat, no matter what we eat. The body will release more insulin if it thinks that something high carb is coming down the line than if we eat just protein or only a little bit of carb. This happens already when food hits our mouths and our taste buds and certain enzymes are stimulated. This is why artificial sweeteners can sometimes cause the body to react the same way as if we had just eaten real sugar; it tastes sweet, so the taste buds and brain say, "aha! sugar!" and send the message to the pancreas to get ready for what's coming.
What's tricky about this? Not everyone's body reacts the same way.
Vicky..it's possible that the drop that you saw was in response to an insulin response. It's also possible that the body produced a normal amount of insulin for what it thought was coming its way and then didn't have anything to use it on, so your blood sugar dropped slightly. Did you notice whether or not you felt hungry while this was happening or have any cravings? If you did, then that's a good sign that this is something you don't want to eat very often.

No, I didnt notice feeling hungry...in fact quite the opposite. I felt full and satisfied (all the way up until I went to bed, which was about 12:30am)....but that could be because I havent had Reese's PB cups in what seems like ages and these are just like the real thing. I also had 4 pieces and I did not want any more than that....or didnt crave anymore the rest of the night.
But, I guess I will just have to see....like you said, see if I dont lose any weight........I think what Im afraid of is......if I start having them more than I have been, I will miss them if I notice any stalls. I am very close to my goal weight and did want to lose another 10 lbs if I could......I didnt think I would get this far really. When I go into maintenence, I would like to know how my body reacts to these things because there are so many products out there with sugar alcohols.
Right now I wanted to raise my carbs slightly, while being able to add things like this to my diet......but am afraid of them.
You seem really knowledgable about this blood sugar and insulin stuff.....so, sorry I ask so many questions!!! But I am learning alot here!!

Thanks!!!!!
Vicky