Can a little cream in coffee bump up blood sugar?

(Robert Corlet) #1

I have been leaning towards carnivore over the last couple of months and my blood glucose is generally in 4.2 to 5.0 range. Very happy with that. But something i notice is that, if i have an early morning coffee with only a tablespoon of cream in it, my blood glucose can increase from say 4.3 (77?) to 5.3 (95?) within in an hour. Can that small bit of lactose in cream have that much of an effect?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

Possible but not likely. The most likely cause is the normal early morning rise in glucose that preps you for the start of the day. The caffeine in the coffee might accentuate it since it’s a stimulant. Just my guess.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #3

Given than home glucometers generally have an accuracy of ±20%, your 4.3 reading means that your actual serum glucose could have been anywhere in the range of 3.6 to 5.4. Likewise, your reading of 5.3 would be the result of a serum glucose anywhere between 4.4 and 6.6. As you can see, there is quite a bit of overlap there. I wouldn’t worry about it, unless you have reason to believe that the dairy added some form of sugar to your cream.

(Robert Corlet) #4

Thanks for the advice. I’m not loosing sleep over it. Just enjoying getting to understand it all. Tomorrow i will try using butter instead of cream and again measure blood glucose before and after. Many thanks.

(Bob M) #5

I’ve tested this for coffee, with pin prick monitors. I delayed coffee (+ cream, usually) and got no higher value after drinking coffee.

Here’s the issue with this. Your blood sugar could go up in the morning, no matter what you do. Consider this:

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Or this:

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If I fast, my blood sugar looks exactly like that (though the whole curve lowers after a while). That is, my blood sugar goes up until around noon, no matter what I do.

The other issue, as Paul mentioned, is that pin prick monitors are terrible. You have to really test multiple times to get a real value.

So, if coffee or coffee + fat has an effect, it’s riding “on top” of this. It gets hard to determine what’s normal and what’s actually increased by what you’re doing for things like coffee or cream, with low to no blood sugar impact. Throw in a bagel, and you’ll see it. Add something with little blood sugar impact, and it’s difficult to see.

This is why I can’t test whether alcohol lowers blood sugar. Since I only drink at night, and my blood sugar is already going down, I’d be looking for a steeper decrease. Hard to find.

(Ian) #6

Did you also check your BG an hour after you normally would to see if the rise in BG is normal for you, without the cream?

I always see a dawn effect and my BG can vary by 0.5-1.0 m/mmol depending on when in the morning I check it.

(Robert Corlet) #7

I had coffee without cream this morning and my blood glucose reading did not change in the that hour. I will do this a few more mornings to see if the result is repeated. I suspect that i may be rather sensitive to any glucose. Maybe when i have been keto for a bit longer this will improve. Thank you for your interest.

#8

love how you are ‘doing you’ and experimenting a bit to find what works best for you
cool!

(Robert Corlet) #9

Thank you!

(Bob M) #10

If you do want to test, you should test maybe every 15 minutes. When I got my CGM, I realized my blood sugar went up and down within an hour. I was previously testing with pin-prick monitors 1-2 hours later, and I realized that totally missed any peak.

(Robert Corlet) #11

I tested after 1 hour. Will do the 15 mins test. Many thanks.

(Ian) #12

Its at this point in our self experimentation addication that many start to feel faint from all the self inflicted blood testing and graphing of the results that we buy a CGM
good luck.

(Robert Corlet) #13

Lol!!! I think I know what you mean.

(Robert Corlet) #14

While pondering this question, i came across this video by Dr Sten Ekberg. It may not be the answer to my question but I found it very interesting viewing.