Does Allulose Cause Blood Sugar to Drop?


(Tracy) #1

I’ve done some experiments lately, and every time I eat allulose my blood sugar goes down about 15 points. It’s just meringue I’m eating, so it’s not any other ingredient doing it. I’m sure it’s not the egg whites causing a drop. Allulose is miraculous because it behaves exactly like sugar, unlike any other sweetener I’ve tried.


(Bob M) #2

15 points is a lot. Is it repeatable? When are you testing.

Though I think to test this, you’d have to make two recipes, one with allulose and one without, and test both times. You’d also have to test using only that meal and test at the same time each time.


(Joey) #3

Assuming, as @ctviggen notes, it’s repeatable and not just a measurement fluke, then my (amateur) guess would be as follows:

You happen to be sensitive to allulose such that your body is releasing insulin (different folks react to artificial sweeteners differently for a variety of reasons).

In turn, the insulin is “pushing” additional blood glucose into organs/fat tissue - i.e., out of your free flowing bloodstream.

Just because a sweetener doesn’t have carbs doesn’t mean that we are not reactive to it in terms of insulin release.

If you consistently see such results, I’d consider experimenting with other sweeteners (i.e., testing glucose levels before/during/after ingestion).

I did a n=1 test with pure stevia extract (NOT cut with other sweeteners - read labels carefully) and, as reported on this forum previously, I had no change in blood glucose. That suggests that my insulin levels didn’t change either.

Hope some of this helps. Keep us posted on what you discover! :vulcan_salute:


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

I suspect that it is not the allulose making your blood sugar drop, but rather the allulose is causing an insulin response that in turn is making your blood glucose drop. Try switching to a different sweetener.


(Neil) #5

Peter Attia had a post on this last month:

He argues that allulose somehow pulls glucose out of the body, but I don’t follow his argument well enough to understand why this couldn’t just be a spike in insulin, as Paul suggests.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #6

My impression is that if allulose really did pull sugar out of the bloodstream, it would be marketed as a diabetes medicine. The insulin effect, on the other hand, is common and idiosyncratic. Allulose might affect your insulin, but not mine; and conversely, my insulin might be affected by erythritol, while yours was not. Granted, the evidence for all this is anecdotal, but there are enough anecdotes to suggest that the situation warrants investigation.

Since raising insulin is not what we generally want to do on a ketogenic diet, I’d advise the OP to avoid allulose and try a different sweetener.


#7

Attia’s argument seems to be that because his glucose level goes down after having allulose and black coffee that this is pulling tiny amounts of glucose with it from his kidneys since 90% of allulose is excreted through the kidneys, the same as the diabetes drugs that are designed to do that. See the comments by “Russell” in the article. He makes the same point that occurred to me. Measure urinary glucose before and after the allulose to see if it is true. In the same way, Attia could also measure his insulin levels before and after coffee as well. Seems simple enough. Personally I have used liquid alluslose and have not found it sweet enough but I now add it as an additional sweetner when I bake. One of my kids was using it and got some stomach upset


(GINA ) #8

I don’t know about it lowering BS, but I mix allulose half and half with Bochasweet and it makes a very good sugar substitute for baking with no cooling effect or weird after taste.


#9

That’s because it is sugar. Allulose isn’t an artificial sweetener, it’s a real sugar that doesn’t get digested the same. That’s why all it’s carbs are there. I have to ask though, is there some kind of downside you’re experiencing from it? Who cares about 15pts of blood sugar? That’s barely a movement. Our bodies secrete insulin when we eat, there’s no such thing as keeping it as zero (assuming dead isn’t what you’re going for) and there’s no such thing as keeping at a basal levels when you eat. It’s crazy to concern yourself with minuscule fluctuations that’s aren’t causing a problem.

Allulose is great, I’d never cut it out. If you didn’t know because it’s actually a sugar it will caramelize! Goes REAL nice on cheesecakes! Or Ice Cream.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #10

The main downside to a rise in insulin is simply that if the OP is highly insulin-resistant, the excess insulin may be higher than desired. Otherwise, your points are very well-taken. As long as carb intake stays reasonable (i.e., very low), the body can be trusted to manage itself nicely.


(Jane) #11

If you have it in a dessert with a meal - no effect. But if you drink it in your coffee all day long you could be having an insulin response of more than you want. Or first thing in the morning coffee and you think you are IF to lunchtime - you may not be.

It is too expensive for coffee, but great in desserts since it performs like sugar. I use liquid stevia and my husband uses erithrytol in his cofffee. He doesn’t drink near as much coffee as I do, though - he switches to unsweetened tea.


#12

That is interesting. I can drink unsweetened coffee all day long as long as it has half and half or cream in it or even full fat milk. I find most black tea too bitter to drink without a sweetener unless it is flavored in some way such as cinnamon. This would all be a huge shock to my younger self who was more of a you want some coffee with your sugar? type of girl. I taught myself to drink unsweetened coffee when I started Keto 4 years ago and never went back