Higher glucose over previous years

(Ethan) #36

Are you a T2 diabetic? If not, your experience matches with Paul Saladino’s thoughts. I am diabetic, so carbs won’t work.

#37

Interesting. Yes, please keep us posted on how you are doing with your BG.

(Joey) #38

It know it’s awkward to quote oneself, but I’ll share an update on that Dr. Cywes video I struggled with concerning “fat cycling.” The idea still makes zero sense to me - and he offers no support for his confused claims.

Still, I was really taken aback by the extent to which it got this guy riled up…

Warning: If you don’t want to hear vulgarity and ad hominen attacks, definitely skip this clip.

Though not my style, it validated my initial reaction that Cywes had wandered into La-La-Land on this topic.

Which, in turn, after watching many more Cywes episodes, leaves me doubting “The Carb Addiction Doc” (self-appointed) on certain other topics where he seems to make little sense.

For an MD/PhD who makes such unequivocal pronouncements, it would help his credibility if he started sharing some supporting science. Haven’t seen any yet.

As for higher glucose, I remain unconvinced that “cycling” higher fat days with lower fat days will solve any problem that might need to be solved in the first place if you’re not eating carbs - which remain completely unnecessary (and potentially harmful) to human health.

#39

I’m not diabetic. But my fasting blood glucose is in the prediabetic range, so, if I don’t do something, it’s just a matter of when.

#40

I’ve managed to bring my 7 day average glucose from 114 to 103. Time will tell if that’s real, or just lucky days. The 30 days came down to 110. So, it is trending down.

I’ve increased carbs up to 60g on a few days, changed to 2MAD and changed the fat source to mainly fish. It’s too early to say this is real, but I’m hopeful.

What I think it’s been more important than the food: instead of running 10-12k, I’m only doing 5-6k and only at 9-9.5 km/h. I’m also doing more walking than running. When I walk, I do about 10 to 15 sprints. I continue to do aerobic exercise most days. I also do body weight, but a lot less, say 2 times a week for a short time.

So, I’ve decreased the length and speed of my high intensity and I’ve increased the length of my low intensity.

I’m not taking medication yet.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #41

Maybe I or someone else has already posted this link somewhere, but in case not here it is:

Does a healthy ketogenic diet cause irreversible insulin resistance?
(Ethan) #42

I think there is a big difference between a fasting glucose of 120 and one of 140…and the article doesn’t mention a1c, but I can guarantee that it wouldn’t consider an a1c of 6 good or normal for keto

(Joey) #43

You’ve offered an intriguing combination of observations…

Since your glucose rises when you exercise - not when you eat - doesn’t this suggest the increase is not about your diet? Instead, couldn’t it simply be a healthy response by your liver to the demand being placed by your muscles for energy?

Do you mind sharing more details on the specific carbs you’re eating? I’d be keenly interested in understanding what kind of carbs seem to be successfully addressing your concerns over elevated glucose.

What is leading you to conclude that you’re on the path to becoming a diabetic? Countless diabetics have reversed/resolved their elevated glucose levels by restricting their carbs. How might increasing carbs help you avoid becoming a diabetic?

As a highly energetic, carb-restricted athlete, your concerns over serum glucose (created by the demands of your body - i.e., not your diet) present a very interesting case. It could be of help to others to walk us through the basis for the conclusions reached thus far. Many thanks!

(Bob M) #44

For me, my blood sugar goes up when I exercise. I personally don’t find that to be a big deal.

There are certain people who do get “higher” blood sugar on low carb/carnivore. Shawn Baker at one time had a very high HbA1c and high glucose, though I think he’s lowered it now. But Shawn Baker is on a different planet concerning exercise and physical ability.

I’ve seen that some/many LMHRs also have higher blood sugar, again most likely due to exercise.

I think it’s the body’s way of creating enough glucose to replenish glycogen and for whatever other reason your body needs this. (And this is why eating more carbs lowers the blood sugar – you’re feeding the need for glycogen using exogenous glucose.)

Are you becoming “diabetic” because of this? No, because I bet if you measured your insulin level, it would be low. What causes diabetes? The pancreas, in large part. It pushes out too much insulin or gets exhausted and can no longer push out insulin.

So, we’re only looking at one side of the equation, which is blood sugar. We’re not looking at what matters as much, if not more, which is your pancreas and insulin.

Get a fasting insulin test done, or better yet, a 2 hour Kraft test (OGTT, with insulin measured at least before, 1 hour and 2 hours after 75g glucose drink).

(Bob M) #46

Do the benefits of ACV supplementation outweigh the detriments (including possible damage to teeth or other side effects)?

What would you actually be achieving, other than changing a number?

By the way, Dr. Georgia Ede has a good email this month about ACV. Includes this study, which looked at RCTs:

I recommend her email (Diagnosis Diet), and it’s infrequent.

#47

A remember a couple years ago Shawn Baker’s FBG was 127, his A1C was commensurately high and his total and free testosterone were very low. This was after being carnivore for quite a while.

I think he says his blood sugar is lower now but I’m unclear on what he did. Doe anyone know? I don’t really follow him closely. I don’t think he has yet joined some of the other carnivores in eating fruit and honey.

#49

Thank you for trying to help, @amwassil. You had already posted it somewhere and I had already read it.

However, I don’t get any answer to my questions in this article. Somewhere the author says something like ‘should you worry’… ‘maybe’.

The references the author uses are youtube videos, the opinion of people. Opinions.

In the meantime, there’s a science paper out there saying people with BG in prediabetic range may already have lost 40% of their beta cells.

Glycated ldl may be the cause of stuff like atherosclerosis. Being in ketosis means glycation your LDL suddenly is ok? No one has the answer yet. I’m afraid of just hoping for the best. Sorry about the misspellings, English is a very foreign language to me.

Does the level of ketosis affect how well one may do with high BG? Who knows?

As for vinegar, I’ve tried and it didn’t work for me. And as @ctviggen says, there’s the potential of hurting my teeth. I consume it with food and also have drank it in water with a straw to avoid my teeth. No luck on glucose numbers. If it acts on ingested carbs, anyway, since the food I eat doesn’t affect my glucose, it won’t solve my problem.

@SomeGuy, I don’t have answers. I can tell you what is my reasoning, but I’m so ignorant in these matters, take it with 10 spoons of sea salt.

I thought of the following hypothesis: for decades, I’ve exercised on an empty stomach.

In the meantime: I could never increase my speed. There’s a wall I could never break.

So, my thoughts now: could it be that my body just got so used to dumping glucose from any place it could find, including destroying my muscles (therefore I was never fast, never strong)? Could my insulin resistance come from there? Not from insulin doing to my pancreas dealing with food, but dealing with all the internally dumps from my liver?

Then, when I moved to keto, it became worse, because I had even less carbs.

I’m not saying this would apply to other people, but aren’t we all different? Could it perhaps explain my situation? Who knows?

So, I was thinking that, perhaps having more carbs, I could eventually get a message sent to my liver that it can decrease the dumping of glucose.

At the moment, I’m at about 50g net carbs per day. Some days, as high as 60. Some days, as low as 30. And my average glucose is at 103 mg/dL. I’ve started to have 24h averages below 100. My fasting BG is below 100, just below.

Is this a coincidence? Is this real? Just the normal error of the CGM sensor? Only time will tell.

If it is real, was it the carbs? Or the changes in exercise?

My exercise at the moment: walking 2h, about 30 min of walk/sprints in the middle of this 2h walk.

On somewhat alternate days, I’m jogging 6k at 9.5 km/h and walking after the jogging.

I’m not doing other forms of exercise at the moment, because of the weather and the place of the world I’m working these months. Too miserable. I do a bit of body weight/resistance exercise, but not much.

I suspect the exercise change is way more likely to be the reason than the carb up, but I don’t know. I’ve also moved to less sat fats. My fats are coming also from fatty fish, nuts and olives. I still eat cheese, but only a few times a week.

I don’t know if you have seen this:

Screenshot_20220127-161635
Screenshot_20220127-161635.jpg1480×720 180 KB

Never mind the other curves, the interesting one is the blue. Look where the A1c of Virta patients was at the beginning and where it is headed. The last point is 3.5 years. The source of this image is a talk of Dr Phinney on youtube.

It kind of made me think that the diet alone isn’t the answer. If this Virta patients, with all the resources and specialists they have at their disposal, can’t keep their A1c down, what about the common mortal? I’m sure many can, but it can’t be generalized. I may be one of the people for whom it doesn’t work.

Why I think I’m going to become diabetic? Because my numbers aren’t becoming better. If I don’t do something extra, like I’m doing now, my guess is that they’ll continue to go in the wrong direction.

Before I started keto, my doctor thought I was fine. I had one BG of 102. Only the one. Now, before I started this effort to change something, they were consistently above 100. My doctor gave me a prescription for Metformin!

Wasn’t the aim of my keto journey to be medication free? I’m not taking the Metformin yet. I hope I don’t have to.

@ctviggen, my Homa-ir is 1.8. I’m not going to ask for another OGTT test at the moment. I’ll do another A1c in 3 months and see what. If by then my FBG is below 100 and my A1c is below 5.7, I’ll just consider I’ve found the right thing to do for myself and rest the case unless next year it goes bad again.

The reason is stress. I’ve set my goal and I’ll stick to it, then try to live a life without worrying about this, until it gets bad again.

If what I’m seeing now is real, not just a temporary thing, then I’ve found what works for me.

You talk about looking at only one side of the equation. But isn’t glycation a real problem? Insulin resistance is making my BG stay up and that means all that glucose doing damage. I imagine it as big rocks going through pipes. I can’t see why the big rocks wouldn’t cause a damage just because the level of something else in the pipe goes up, or down. So, if my insulin is low, then I’m happy, I won’t have problems linked to high insulin. But it doesn’t mean I won’t have problems linked to high BG.

Do you have a reference (not a YouTube video, not a non peer-reviewed article) that says high BG doesn’t cause damage if insulin is low? If you do, I beg you to share it! It’d make me so happy!

#50

To be honest, the ketosis part doesn’t interest me at all. I’m yet to see one benefit of being in ketosis.

I only eat keto to keep my BG low and insulin low.

Things like brain fog, inflammation, better hair, nails, the cure for all problems… not my issues.

The vinegar didn’t do the blood cleaning for me.

I hope it works for other people and I’m happy if it works for you.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #51

@Corals What I love about you: you’re registering BG ‘slightly’ above what you think it should be. And instead of thinking ‘I wonder what wrong’s with me that’s resulting in elevated glucose’ you think instead ‘Keto is nonsense’. Hundreds, if not thousands of folks on this very forum, can attest that keto is not nonsense. But your conclusion is 'Keto is nonsense. Please excuse me if I ignore you.

(Joey) #52

@Corals It’s clear you’ve given this topic much consideration and are working to find the relevant science that best explains what you’re experiencing, and how you can best proceed. Kudos.

Reviewing the ground covered throughout this thread I see little of value I can add. Best wishes and please keep us posted on developments. :vulcan_salute:

[BTW, your English is impeccable - like a native speaker!]

(Mark Rhodes) #53

There’s not much more in this [earlier link](https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/elevated-blood-glucose/97323?u=marklifestyle) in the forums but you are not the first.

I started carnivore in September 2021. 2020 through 2021 my keto diet became less and less carbohydrates. Much more meat. 65%Fat- 30% Protein. During that time I noticed my sugars also going up but my insulin remains about 4.0 uiU/ml. Ill post mine over the last few years. Taken daily 2 hours after awakening but averaged monthly. It is interesting. I think I am somehow being affected by coffee and my HWC. I am going to experiment with this

(Robin) #54

Hey, Michael. That was’t a personal attack. Play nice.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #55

Maybe I missed it amongst all her posts complaining about how keto doesn’t work, but I don’t recall @Corals saying ‘…for me’. I recall multiple instances of general negation of keto as a thing in itself as if the positive experiences of thousands if not millions of folks from every corner o earth count for nothing.

I don’t apologize for not letting it pass. It’s not an attack on me personally - I couldn’t care less about her opinion of keto. I do care when she portrays keto as something unhealthy generally and a useless exercise on the face of overwhelming evidence that it’s quite the opposite.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #56

I can think of two:

  1. Being in ketosis means that insulin and glucose are low enough to no longer be causing systemic damage.

  2. In addition to serving many organs as fuel, the three ketone bodies, acetoacetate, acetone, and β-hydroxybutyrate, are all potent signaling hormones with beneficial effects on the body.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #57

Ironically, I had an English teacher in high school who kept trying to wean us from saying, “I think that,” and “In my opinion,” on the grounds that every reader knew it was our opinion. But alas, this was pre-Internet, so different logic applied back then.

You youngsters don’t know how well you have it, with dirt all over the place and bread that comes pre-sliced. :grin: