Carb loading before surgery?

(Robin) #43

It cracks me up that the patient menu at the hospital was all sugar and starch. Good way to keep the customers coming back, I guess.
And now I’m noticing that after my week of bland food to prepare for surgery, everything tastes super salty. I always kinda liked salty food before. Weird.
So good to be back to my own kitchen and real food.

(Cathy) #44

I only had 1 meal during my hospital stay and I had requested low carb. I got a mystery slab of meat (spam maybe) and an orange. I think the kitchen staff was having fun with me!:zipper_mouth_face:

#45

They meant the surgery itself, which is a huge stress on the body. Carbs drop cortisol levels, so that’s (probably) why they said that. When our CNS is in a sympathetic state, repairs are put on hold, and carbs are muscle sparing, which depending on the surgery can come into play, especially if you’re not eating for a while after.

#46

Insulin / IGF-1 are growth factors, very strong ones. Just like the medical purpose of Anabolic Steroids, huge benefits to them pre- / post-surgery.

Literally the same thing that’s done in bodybuilding, huge stress damage on the body, and then you chemically make it less of a problem and promote the growing / healing despite that fact. Swap muscle damage from bodybuilding with body damage from surgery, and it’s the same end goal.

(KM) #47

Yes, I got the correlation between hard workout and surgery, as body stressors. So you feel it’s the rebuilding element of insulin and not any relation between insulin and [stress induced] hypergylcemia that’s the key to why an insulin bump is effective? Or that there’s a situation in both circumstances where mitigating hyperglycemia and rebuilding are inextricably linked?

Just out of curiosity, does extreme exercise stress produce hypergylcemia? Is it that response less noticeable with carb loading?

ETA: Sorry Robin … I do want to keep this on point for you, as you’re the OP! Hope that your recovery is going really well, whether you can shed any light on carb loading or not. :slightly_smiling_face:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #48

No, but it makes sense for someone on a high-carb diet who is not going to be able to eat for a while after the operation. Not being able to eat is scary for many people. This drink, together with a glucose drip after the operation, will keep them from starving to death during or immediately after the operation.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #49

I suspect that such patients are so rare that the researchers failed to even think to study them.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #50

KentCarnivore, who has a colostomy, claims that his all-meat diet is quite a bit easier on his digestive tract than carbs in any form.