That is odd. Are these only morning readings? Or in the evening too?
What are you using for a meter?
When you had a meal and it went up to 125, what time did you eat and what was the meal?
My morning blood sugar is around 100, but it drops all day. So, I recommend taking blood sugar multiple times, particularly near night.
Unfortunately, I didn’t start testing until I’d been keto for a while (2+ years), so I don’t know how I was initially.
Both morning and evening. I test before my first meal of the day around 10 and then an hour after I’ve eaten, then an hour later. I do the same with my last meal at around 6 with the same results.
I’m not getting sky high numbers. I saw in my medical record some years ago when I had a non-fasting glucose number of 193 yet nothing was ever said about diabetes or being pre-diabetic. After I lost my initial 40 pounds by last October, my weight has remained the same, +/- a couple of pounds.
My concern now is that for the past couple of months I’ve been having numbness in the toes of both feet, previously only when lying down at night but now during the day as well.
No pain though.
I use a metene blood glucose meter.
I am in the same boat. I always had pre-diabetic FBG. I have been keto for about 1.25 year. I didn’t really check the first few months but since I check all the time and my FBG has been 102-117every morning.
Last night I tried taking Berberine 600mg at bed time. This morning I tested and my FBG was 90!! My ketones were 2.6 which is higher than I ever got with MCT oil or anything else.
I have read that Berberine reduces “hepatic glucose output” which would make sense since I assume my muscles are fat adapted but my liver still wants to pump out more glucose via gluconeogenesis than I need.
I know I have taken Berberine in the past, but frankly, considering I am taking no prescription meds, I am now taking a dozen or more supplements and vitamins.
I first started keto a year ago after having a CT scan which showed I had a severe fatty liver and severe coronary calcification. I’m having another CT scan in 3 weeks where I hope to find both of those things greatly improved.
@Elox A blood sugar of 193 and no one said anything? Do you have a recent HbA1c?
@fitbod Since I have been following Fire in a Bottle, and he has recommended berberine, I started taking it and researching it. It has quite a bit of evidence for it, with not much against it. Multiple studies on T2 diabetics indicate improvements.
Your theory about your liver is not a bad one. It might be true.
I stopped taking berberine because I developed what I believe was atrial fibrillation. I can’t prove berberine caused this, but I wanted to go back to taking nothing (but salt, magnesium at times, potassium at times, and vitamin D). I did notice more arrhythmia at times when taking berberine, though, and atrial fibrillation sucks.
I may be an outlier, as I’ve been low carb/keto for so long; berberine might not be helpful, and might be detrimental, to me. (For instance, when Brad from Fire in a Bottle lists fatty acid profiles/values for diabetic and normal people, mine are always closer to the “normal” than “diabetic”.)
I think AFib scares me more than controlled diabetes would
Although who knows if that is correct,and whether it applies to humans.
I took Berberine on and off and noticed nothing. I was hoping to have an obvious clue, such as that I was not hungry at night. Did not happen so I stopped. Do you think the Berberine caused the AFib? Is yours documented by a doctor or simply something you feel?
I started taking cinnamon recently, not sure if it does anything either but I like the aftertaste!
I agree that a doctor not at least commenting on a BG of 193, unless you just downed an entire cake in front of him is questionable. Even after a meal it should not go that high in someone without a diabetic or prediabetic issue who is not pregnant.
In terms of the dawn effect, I have heard that you should wait at least 30 minutes before checking BG in the morning (not medical advice, no idea where I read it)
I do find my BG is lower after fasting for a few days but then it creeps higher
Good Luck
I did take Berberine last fall but evidently never reordered it when the bottle was gone (it also had Ceylon cinnamon).
My dr. had ordered blood work including a glucose test but I had not been fasting. The 193 should have set some bells off though. Even after fasting my glucose level was just over 100 and is high by the guidelines. Only once in 10 years was my fasting glucose level for my yearly physical under 100 and then it was 98.
“In terms of the dawn effect, I have heard that you should wait at least 30 minutes before checking BG in the morning (not medical advice, no idea where I read it)”
In terms of the dawn effect, I test my glucose level a couple of hours after I get up which includes a 1 hour bike ride, so it’s nowhere close to when I first awake. And then it is a few hours at least until I first eat.
It may be the bike ride! There is something with exercise and glucose being released, I forget exactly what but I have read posts where people measured their BG before and after exercise and it increased
I’m going to play around with checking my glucose level this next week. I just ran out of strips today but tomorrow I’m getting 200 so I’ll have plenty.
Along with this, it’s the numbness in my toes that concerns me but I have no pain anywhere.
Do you eat wheat gluten? I realize with Keto you do not eat much but it is still possible to get it in sauces, processed meats. Try going gluten free for two months and see if that changes anything. I have a relative who has foot numbness although she is in her 80s but has had it for 15 years. She has always watched her weight and is thin, not diabetic (although diabetes and celiac and autoimmune thyroid is very common among her cousins) but is a eat everything in moderation, good quality and no dessert person. She has been all over and no one could tell her what is wrong although she seems to be ok and managing it. I did some quick research online when she first told me about it and I do not remember the details but one of the suggestions was to avoid gluten which she was not interested in hearing since I have no medical training. Again, since I am a lay person nothing here should be considered medical advice and of course consult your health care provider before changing your diet
Do you look at ingredients?
I have a child with Celiac who was diagnosed in 2017 and personally have been avoiding gluten since 2009 (except when I intentionally give in to cravings). I thought I knew about gluten but when my child was diagnosed 4 years ago I realized that gluten was in so many more places than I realized. It also has hidden names and some items such as maltodexterin you cannot tell the source
I don’t eat processed foods and am now mostly carnivore and the things I eat have few ingredients, so I think I’m good about gluten.
Welcome to the forums!
The first thing is to doublecheck your carbohydrate intake for what we call “hidden carbs.” If you live in the U.S., be aware that manufacturers are allowed to choose serving sizes small enough to disguise the sugar content of their products. Any amount less than 0.5 g/serving can be listed as “0 g,” and any amount less than 1.0 g/serving can be listed as “less than 1 g.” If any form of sugar appears in the list of ingredients, I assume that the amount per serving is either 0.4999999 g or 0.999999 g, as appropriate. And of course, I also multiply that number by the real number of servings I will probably eat. In civilised parts of the world, manufacturers are still allowed to put amounts per serving, but they are also required to put amounts per 100 g of product, which rather puts the kibosh on this kind of shenanigans.
Assuming your doublecheck of carb intake doesn’t reveal any problems, try reducing your protein intake, compensating with a bit of extra fat. Although you say you were never diagnosed as diabetic, it is still possible that you have a certain amount of insulin resistance, and this can cause the liver to over-produce glucose if protein is too abundant. The Dudes recommend protein intake between 1.0 and 1.5 g per kg of lean body mass per day.
Another point to consider is that your body may simply be wired to maintain a higher serum glucose level than other people’s. Dr. Paul Mason, the Australian sports physician, said in a recent interview that as far as he’s concerned, a higher level of serum glucose is not a problem; it’s dramatic rises and falls in the level that he worries about. As long as a patient’s level remains relatively stable, he is happy.
Most of the food I eat I make myself which is why it seems I’m always cooking or washing dishes.
I’ve switched to mostly carnivore now so I’m not getting many carbs there.
I’m a 69 year old senior citizen and when I went on keto a year ago I lost 40 pounds quickly and unfortunately some of that was muscle mass because I wasn’t eating enough protein–something which happens to us old duffers.
I watched Dr. Mason’s videos so it’s good to know that my glucose level, which does not get high, may just be me. I just don’t seem to get those 80-85 blood glucose levels so many brag about.
My HOMA score and other lab work would seem to indicate I’m no longer IR.
For my (what I believe to be) Afib, I was diagnosed with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (my heart was getting bigger for no reason they could discern) in summer, 2013. I had a ton of PVCs and am susceptible to such things, even now.
Using drugs (and a keto diet since 1/1/14, though most cardiologists don’t know about keto), I have a normal size heart.
I have only had two Afib episodes, one many years ago, and one recently. And the reason I think it MAY be related to berberine is that I was taking berberine, and had more palpitations than normal.
As for ketones, more evidence is coming out that ketones are beneficial for the heart. So much that I think anyone with heart failure or certain types of heart attack should be on a keto diet.
As for the “perfect” blood glucose, I also rarely go below about 80, unless I fast multiple days. But my blood sugar is flat:
As for exercise, exercise does cause my blood sugar to increase:
Your own forum discussion, which you link, covers this extensively. Specifically reread the following comments, among many others. As @PaulL notes animal studies should not be dismissed out of hand, but evaluated on their merits. That said, rodent studies are particularly prone to generate irrelevant conclusions for humans. That because it is very difficult to get rats and mice into ketosis and requires a special starvation ration to accomplish. To apply any conclusions to humans eating a nutrional ketogenic diet is iffy to say the least. See this and this and read the study linked.
As always, best wishes.
I have had this bottle of Berberine for over a year probably. Randomly took it during the day sometimes. Maybe it is why I would sometimes get lower BG later in the day? I never connected the dots. I do know it hurt my stomach when I took it on an empty stomach which is why I sort of gave up on it. I will keep taking it at night and see what happens, today could have been a fluke.
Peter Attia has said he would rather take Metformin than Berberine since the mechanism of action is basically the same and at least it is regulated - your Afib experience is a good reminder that we aren’t quite sure what is going on with these herbal supplements.
With respect to my liver, I wasn’t always kind to it. I had fatty liver diagnosed when I was 32 and I wasn’t even very overweight.
