Veggies spiking blood glucose

(Jenny) #1

Hi! I recently had a baby and am now on a keto diet. I was a low carb eater prior to pregnancy (less than 50 grams) and was less than 100 grams during pregnancy. Since pregnancy I have been back to 30-50 grams. Today, day one of even lower carbs, I started exogenous ketones with my coffee and C8 oil in an attempt to get into ketosis faster. It is a pure source of ketones, no added sugars, etc.

My fasting bg prior to the coffee was 89. Had the coffee, was at 77 about an hour after. Had a spinach/raw veggies/salmon/olive oil salad that consisted of 12.7 net carbs according to Cronometer. My blood glucose shot up to 121 one hour post meal. This is higher than normal. Can anyone shed some light on why this would be!?

(Todd Allen) #2

That’s not a result I would expect from such a meal. The olive oil should slow absorption of any carbs and the salmon should help stimulate some insulin response which ought to minimize any blood sugar rise.

I’d probably test the same meal again to see if that response is consistent. I’ve seen other factors give me unusual spikes such as having a cold coming on or stress or poor sleep. If it seems like that meal is really problematic then I’d try to break it down, leave out the most likely culprit, say tomatoes or onions and try again.

(Ethan) #3

Skip the exogenous ketones. They won’t put you into ketosis faster. The presence of ketones in your blood doesn’t drive ketosis. In fact, it could drive down internal ketone production.

(Jenny) #4

Ketones cause ketosis. So if I’m using exogenous ketones and have low blood glucose wouldn’t I be in ketosis faster than without? My body would then be using ketones as the primary source of energy, no?

(Ethan) #5

Ketones do not cause ketosis. Ketosis causes ketones. If you insert ketones exogenously without ketosis, ketosis isn’t the necessary result. Your body may use them. We don’t know the makeup of those ketones. Are they L or R ketones? The body makes only one kind, but the exogenous variety is usually a mix. Nobody knows how the other kind is metabolized. Moreover, the excess presence of ketones could cause ketone production (which is caused by ketosis) to slow or stop, perhaps taking you out of or preventing ketosis.

(Jenny) #6

I forgot to look at the protein content…it was 22 grams. Could this be the culprit? I didn’t think spinach, broccoli, and 3 oz of salmon would result in so much protein. This is hard, lol.

(Jenny) #7

Thank you Ethan. I have been misinformed and have even more research to do!

(Ethan) #8

We all do :slight_smile: My information on this is from 2 Keto Dudes’ podcast. I am not an expert, just a practitioner and experimenter, too.

#9

Calories (independent of macros) cause an increase in insulin production. That’s why fasting and calorie restriction are effective at treating IR and some cancers.

Carbs increase in BG the most, then protein (~50%), and fat the least. Depending on your degree of IR, your increase in BG could be normal. Do more testing before and after various meals to see what’s typical for you.

It’s unusual for raw veggies to cause a large BG response, for a couple of reasons: the high amount of fiber (especially when raw) and the low amount of calories (its hard to eat 100 calories of spinach- 16 oz).

(Todd Allen) #10

I think you meant to speak of macros raising insulin not BG. And insulin lowers BG.

#11

MCT Oil and Exogenous ketones don’t put you in ketosis, they just force ketones into your system. There’s a difference. It’s the same thing as taking statins and thinking your cholesterol has been fixed, not fixed… but faked! It’s only a chemical mask of the situation. Our blood sugar moves around a lot more than we think and 121 isn’t that high. You just had a baby, your body is NOT back to normal. I really wouldn’t worry about it. Eating 30-50 grams especially at first will make it hard to see noticeable signs of being in ketosis for most people. I’ve been eating this way for years and I can tell you if I ate 50g I’d be out of ketosis VERY quickly as would many others.

#12

Sorry for the confusion.

What I was trying to say is that carbs are the most glucogenic macro. Many of the amino acids in protein are glucogenic. Eating (regardless of the macro composition of the meal) increases BG levels. Our bodies release insulin to lower it, but IR folks are typically in a state of hyperinsulimia. To fix this, the goal is to keep insulin low, but since that’s inconvenient to measure, we use BG as a proxy.

I hope that’s more clear.

(jilliangordona) #13

Do you have any research or data that exogenous ketones can drive down ketone production?

(jilliangordona) #14

I have linked a few articles about that appear to show positive results in exogenous ketone use

I’ve had nothing but positive results in exogenous ketones, however there is more research that needs to be done

(Ethan) #15

I didn’t say that it can, but that it could, prevent ketone production by the body. I would have to refer to @richard for more details until I can dig up what I had read and heard. However, I do recall him on 2KetoDudes podcasts bringing up exogenous ketones many times, saying that we just don’t know much about them, and also positing that there could be a pathway by which ketosis is inhibited or at least ketones production by the body halted due to the presence of exogenous ketones in the blood supply.

(Richard Morris) #16

I’m not sure that was something I mentioned, but that it true. You probably wouldn’t make new ketones while you have a high enough concentration of them in circulation. That is just how chemical reactions proceed, they are increased by more reactants, and inhibited by more products.

The Stubbs study showed that in the racemic ketone salts only the physiological isoform became acetone, which can only happen if only they were first converted into acetoacetate. And that means that that study for the first time shows that 50% of the racemic is not metabolized as a source for energy.

Now this lab is the one that invented the ketone ester so it’s not surprising that they showed the other guys stuff is half useless, unmeasurable by a ketone test, and builds up in the body without a way to be metabolized. That study indicates that all exogenous ketones on the market today other than the non-racemic ester from Keiren Clarke’s labs, may be potentially quite dangerous.

The researchers in the other Kesl study include several who invented the racemic ketone salts (and one of them did jail time over the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BALCO_scandal) and they managed to simply prove that eating ketones raises ketones and lowers the bodies need to make glucose, and didn’t apparently harm any of the rats.

I think we all agree that we need to do more study into how these are metabolized.

(Mark Rhodes) #17

Jenny. Try Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living by Phinney and Volek. It was their initial research that for many of us led us into this lifestyle. They are both scientists and you will often see them quoted or shouted out to in a current YouTube video. I would also offer that their preliminary work presented in this book is just that: preliminary. AT the time of publication it wasn’t that way. Still, it can provide for you a context in which to process all that you are reading and studying.

For me their information allowed me to understand how to use Jason Fung’s info from the Obesity Code. That is how to use ketosis to stabilize my insulin, glucose and transform myself into being fat adapted. Once I was in this place and I stalled, I began to fast to break the stall. Not all stalls are weight driven.

(Clare) #18

I think you’re confused. Ketosis causes ketones, not the other way around.