Dawn Phenomenon - GONE!

paddy0761 · 2017-02-10 07:31:26 UTC

Since I started my Paleo/Primal/LCHF/Keto journey, I’ve been frustrated by persistently high morning BG of 5.8 - 6.3 even though HbA1c has always been OK at 5.4.

Something strange has happened in the last week, this wretched dawn phenomenon is gone. NSV!
BG is now printing at 4.7 - 5.0 in the mornings and pretty much stays in that range except postprandial.

I changed two things at around the same time one month ago:

I switched from weight loss mode to weight maintenance mode. I’d previously been losing weight regularly for over a year.
I started seasoning every meal with Nigella Sativa (Black cumin seed) from a pepper grinder.

Does being in weight loss mode while ketotic promote GNG? What happens to all the glycerol molecules released during lipolysis?

Anyone else experience the “Death of the Dawn” after maintaining a steady weight for a few weeks?

replay · 2017-02-10 11:02:38 UTC

Congratulations on managing your AM blood sugar.

Hmmm. I have this spice but have not used it yet. Guess who is going to go ahead a try it now, lol.

richard · 2017-02-10 11:10:47 UTC

I suspect that glycerol just displace use of amino acids to make new glucose. It shouldn’t cause more glucose than otherwise to be made.

I have nigella sativa. So what influenced you to add that to your meals?

jfricke · 2017-02-10 13:09:43 UTC

I am far from maintenance. My BG typically runs 100-110 upon waking and then drop to 85-90 throughout the day.

On my current fast I noticed that after the third day While my BG continues to go lower the differential between AM & PM is minimal.

paddy0761 · 2017-02-11 02:38:46 UTC

Where to start? There seems to be so many benefits. “Improving insulin sensitivity” and “beta cell regeneration” caught my attention.

A few links here: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/substance/nigella-sativa-aka-black-seed

paddy0761 · 2017-02-11 02:50:03 UTC

FBG 4.8 this morning. I’m just staggered. Morning glucose has fallen by more than 1.0!!!

richard · 2017-02-11 03:22:13 UTC

Yeah that’s almost always a bad sign when traditional agents like herbs are asserted to have Too many effects, and especially when the active mechanism hasn’t been identified.

However a reduction in 1.52 %age points of HbA1c got my attention …

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Effect of Nigella sativa seeds on the glycemic control of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

AO Bamosa, H Kaatabi, FM Lebdaa, AM Elq and A Al-Sultanb, Indian journal of physiology and pharmacology, Oct-Dec 2010

Diabetes mellitus is a common chronic disease affecting millions of people world wide. Standard treatment is failing to achieve required correction of blood glucose in many patients. Therefore, there is a need for investigating potential hypoglycemic drugs or herbs to improve glycemic control in diabetic patients. Nigella sativa seeds were used as an adjuvant therapy in patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 added to their anti-diabetic medications. A total of 94 patient were recruited and divided randomly into three dose groups. Capsules containing Nigella sativa were administered orally in a dose of 1, 2 and 3 gm/day for three months. The effect of Nigella sativa on the glycemic control was assessed through measurement of fasting blood glucose (FBG), blood glucose level 2 hours postprandially (2 hPG), and glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c). Serum C-peptide and changes in body weight were also measured. Insulin resistance and beta-cell function were calculated usin the homeostatic model assessment (HOMA2). Nigella sativa at a dose of 2 gm/day caused significant reductions in FBG, 2hPG, and HbA1 without significant change in body weight. Fasting blood glucose was reduced by an average of 45, 62 and 56 mg/dl at 4, 8 and 12 weeks respectively. HbAlC was reduced by 1.52% at the end of the 12 weeks of treatment (P<0.0001). Insulin resistance calculated by HOMA2 was reduced significantly (P<0.01), while B-cell function was increased (P<0.02) at 12 weeks of treatment. The use of Nigella sativa in a dose of 1 gm/day also showed trends in improvement in all the measured parameters but it was not statistically significant from the baseline. However, no further increment in the beneficial response was observed with the 3 gm/day dose. The three doses of Nigella sativa used in the study did not adversely affect either renal functions or hepatic functions of the diabetic patients throughout the study period.the results of this study indicate that a dose of 2 gm/ day of Nigella sativa might be a beneficial adjuvant to oral hypoglycemic agents in type 2 diabetic patients.

… unfortunately evcen russian hackers (Sci-hub) aren’t interested in hacking the Indian Journal of physiology and pharmacology

This one that observed an increase in beta cell proliferation

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Partial regeneration/proliferation of the beta-cells in the islets of Langerhans by Nigella sativa L. in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats.

M Kanter, I Meral, Z Yener, H Ozbek and H Demir, The Tohoku journal of experimental medicine, Dec 2003

This experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of N. sativa L. on histopathology of pancreatic beta-cells, and blood insulin and glucose concentrations in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Fifty male Wistar rats (200-250 g) were divided into two experimental groups (diabetics with no treatment and diabetics with N. sativa L. treatment), each containing twenty-five rats. Diabetes was induced in both groups by a single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (STZ) (50 mg/kg). The experimental animals in both groups became diabetic within 24 hours after the administration of STZ. The rats in N. sativa L.-treated group were given the daily intraperitoneal injection of 0.20 ml/kg of N. sativa L. volatile oil for 30 days starting the day after STZ injection. Control rats received only the same amount of normal saline solution. The rats in both groups received the last injection 24 hours before the sacrification and 5 randomly-selected rats in each group were sacrificed before, and the 1, 10, 20 and 30 days after the STZ injection to collect blood and pancreatic tissue samples. The N. sativa L. treatment caused a decrease in the elevated serum glucose, an increase in the lowered serum insulin concentrations and partial regeneration/ proliferation of pancreatic beta-cells in STZ-induced diabetic rats with the elapse of the experiment. It is concluded that the hypoglycaemic action of N. sativa L. could be partly due to amelioration in the beta-cells of pancreatic islets causing an increase in insulin secretion. More studies are needed to demonstrate the exact mechanism of action of N. sativa L. on ameliorated blood glucose concentration in STZ-induced diabetes.

Is open access

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/tjem/201/4/201_4_213/_pdf

and has photos of the histopathology

The size of the effect on glucose is significant, but the effect on insulin production s not large enough to be significant after 20 days tho

But it is certainly very interesting.

paddy0761 · 2017-02-11 04:17:00 UTC

Yeah. I read that first one. The magic dose appears to be 2g per day. I’m not having anywhere near that much. I’d be lucky if I was having 200mg a day just grinding it over my 2 meals a day.

However, I do use the oil topically on my face and chrome dome a couple of times a week. Maybe I’m absorbing more that way? It does appear to improve the skin. Both myself and the CEO are using it. She uses it everyday as a full body moisturiser and her BG has dropped by about 0.6 since she started a month ago. Of interest is that, she was never overweight and has only dropped about 4kg since being LCHF - she’s now 51kg.

My concern is that, if BG is going down is my insulin secretion going up? I have no way of measuring that at home. Hopefully, BG is being driven lower by increased insulin sensitivity, and not by increased insulin secretion. Not due for full bloods until June. Can’t wait to see what’s going on.

jfricke · 2017-02-11 14:33:22 UTC

I’m quite discouraged this morning. After my fasting BG had been down in the 70’s the last two mornings of my 5 day fast it is right back up to 105 this morning after just 1 very low carb fast breaking meal. I had a salad with mixed greens, mozzarella, 1 mini red pepper, mushrooms and a low carb blue cheese dressing. I had 3 chicken drumsticks with pork rind breading deep fried. 2 of @Brenda’s epic cinnamon rolls.

I realize it will take time to drive this critter down, I was hoping for a little longer lasting results. My wife started out overweight but not morbidly obese as I was. She has no dawn phenomenon at all.

Here are the results of the 5 day fast on my BG and ketones. Please notice in the "Notes That I moved the decimal place by .01 for BG and by .1 for #'s lost so the graph could maintain some semblance of scale.

paddy0761 · 2017-02-11 14:54:28 UTC

You’re worrying too much I think. If blood glucose bounces up to 105, that probably means insulin is attenuated. Imagine blood glucose and insulin on opposite sides of a seesaw. 105 is low for postprandial. Not a problem.

It is more important to keep insulin low. The problem is you can’t measure insulin yourself.

jfricke · 2017-02-11 15:29:02 UTC

105 was my morning fasted reading after my refeed meal.

I understand it is what it is and only time can fix it. Just frustrating.