New but with a question

[alphagemini]

Hi Forum. thanks for being.

I need an answer to an odd question. I have had blood work ups which showed an HbA1c level of 38 whic is OK. My fasting level is normal but tends to be at the top or the range, especially during the early am peak. My after food level is fine, unless I have eaten anything with carbohydrates or sugar.
If I eat a sweet potato or porridge my blood glucose level goes way high, up to 9 or 10. It then takes three or four hours to get back to normal. Is this a worry? I am 85, slim, excellent diet and have no health probs. Is this just a feature of great age? I would ask my so called 'doctor' but I don't think his brain cell count is quite up to anything but formulaic mechanical response.

 

[Drummer]

For me, being a type two controlled only by diet that would have been perfectly normal until I benefited from the consistently low carb diet I began over three years ago - more accurately I went back to it, as I have always needed to eat low carb but my GPs have never agreed with me.
I have not eaten potato or oats for a very long time, decades, as I could never cope with them.

 

[alphagemini]

For me, being a type two controlled only by diet that would have been perfectly normal until I benefited from the consistently low carb diet I began over three years ago - more accurately I went back to it, as I have always needed to eat low carb but my GPs have never agreed with me.
I have not eaten potato or oats for a very long time, decades, as I could never cope with them.

Thanks for the prompt response. So I'm not alone with this. I won't be eating carbs again for sure.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi and welcome

I am a little confused. Have you been diagnosed as diabetic in the past but your current HbA1c of 38 puts you in remission or have you never been diagnosed but for some reason have taken to self testing your BG? If the latter, what sparked your interest in monitoring it? It also sounds like you mostly follow a low carb diet? Is that just a preference or have you used that to manage your previously diagnosed diabetes? In my opinion it would be reasonable for a person who has diabetes which is in remission via a very low carb diet, to have a spike like that after eating a moderate portion of carbs like a bowl of porridge or a sweet potato.

 

[alphagemini]

Hi and welcome

I am a little confused. Have you been diagnosed as diabetic in the past but your current HbA1c of 38 puts you in remission or have you never been diagnosed but for some reason have taken to self testing your BG? If the latter, what sparked your interest in monitoring it? It also sounds like you mostly follow a low carb diet? Is that just a preference or have you used that to manage your previously diagnosed diabetes? In my opinion it would be reasonable for a person who has diabetes which is in remission via a very low carb diet, to have a spike like that after eating a moderate portion of carbs like a bowl of porridge or a sweet potato.

Thanks for your reply. I have never been diagnosed with diabetes, but I have always checked my health numbers, usually at least once a year. So, no, I'm not in remission. My doctors would not look beyond HbA1c anyway. My interest in the mechanics of my body is driven by a crazy ambition to live to 100! I service my car with the same attention to detail. Some things can be controlled if you are aware of them, like cholesterol levels. Doctors are hot to prescribe statins to treat symptoms but usually fail to check the thyroid and Iodine levels in the diet which control cholesterol. Its all very fascinating. I find that GPs have only a shallow knowledge about many things.

 

[rebrascora]

It sounds like, with your outlook on life, insight and knowledge, you will be a great asset to the forum. I hope you stick around so that we can all benefit from your wisdom. Sadly doctors are under too much pressure to do much more than prescribe tablets and move onto the next patient and the big pharma companies are happy to keep it that way. If all patients were able and willing to take a greater interest in their health as you are and how they can improve it, then the doctors might have more time to investigate things fully.
Out of interest, have you always followed a low carb diet and do you have any diabetics in your family? With those post prandial BG readings, my gut feeling would be that you are developing diabetes, but if you eat low carb most of the time you are keeping it in remission hence the perfectly acceptable HbA1c.

 

[ianf0ster]

Hi, don't worry about your fasting BG reading being at the high end of 'normal'. If it goes down after food then it is certainly just the 'Dawn Phenomenon'.
I get it too.

 

[Drummer]

My thyroid began to fail years before I got a diagnosis - all the symptoms were put down to my weight, rather than my weight gain triggering any sort of warning bell. I never have got back to my former activity level - I used to run over mountains and sail small yachts, but I finally got a diagnosis when my TSH was four thousand times the top level of normal. My doctor called me in and started with 'something is very wrong'
Hmm - nothing wrong with my adrenal response and my cardio vascular system then.
I think that I would never have been diagnosed with diabetes if I had been allowed to stick to low carb eating, but the GPs and dieticians think they know better.

 

[alphagemini]

It sounds like, with your outlook on life, insight and knowledge, you will be a great asset to the forum. I hope you stick around so that we can all benefit from your wisdom. Sadly doctors are under too much pressure to do much more than prescribe tablets and move onto the next patient and the big pharma companies are happy to keep it that way. If all patients were able and willing to take a greater interest in their health as you are and how they can improve it, then the doctors might have more time to investigate things fully.
Out of interest, have you always followed a low carb diet and do you have any diabetics in your family? With those post prandial BG readings, my gut feeling would be that you are developing diabetes, but if you eat low carb most of the time you are keeping it in remission hence the perfectly acceptable HbA1c.

Thanks again. I have to confess to an unholy appetite for milk chocolates, coffe and walnut cream cake and other sinful things. This is the first time that I have noticed a problem with carbs. I have repented and now eschew all things carb. I was never fat, usually around 144 lbs., but in the last month my weight has fallen to 138, all off my gut. I hope that I haven't done much damage. As far as I know, I have no familial history of diabetes.

 

[Drummer]

Ah yes - that bay window feature is, I suspect, a real give away to being unable to deal with carbs - but high cocoa chocolate is fine - if you can manage a bit of baking there are things you can make with ground nuts, eggs, cream, and grated chocolate which are low carb. I do a lot with sugar free jelly, frozen berry mixtures and real custard - I have a recipe book which is close to food porn.....
My everyday eating is fairly simple but would probably make a dietician go all faint.
I eat things like steak and mushrooms for breakfast, though I do have fish and salad sometimes, however the salad is walnuts, coleslaw, celery cucumber tomato a bag of mixed salad, beetroot, finely chopped onion, radishes, sweet red or yellow pepper and if I don't fancy fish then I have grated cheese and boiled eggs.
For supper I have roasted or stir fried veges with meat or fish - and berries with cream, oh and there is the proper coffee with cream too.
My cholesterol levels are considered high, but I found an article on BMJ Open which matched cholesterol level and age at death and found that higher LDL was associated with living longer. It was taken down - someone wanted a second opinion or a recount, I expect.
I was 147lb with a 24 inch waist when I was told I should go on a diet - by a doctor. The diet sheet started of porridge or cereal for breakfast, with skimmed milk. Totally wrong for me. It took 40 years and numerous diet sheets and a lot of screaming and shouting to get me almost spherical and a type two diabetic, but all my GPs have been adamant that low carb is very very bad. Now they don't want to see me again.

 

[Tee G]

Hi and welcome, So you want to get the telegram, well I hope you do - I bet the way you look after yourself, you will beat Kirk Douglas at this rate and get to 104 !...... When i joined here a short while ago someone posted me a link to the Diet Doctor website, shows values of carbs in the diet, its good reading. Hope you think so too - good luck and keep up all that good work, how inspiring you are https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @alphagemini

Sounds like you are very interested in exploring your own n=1 experiments, which is a very useful asset when it comes to a slightly wonky metabolism, because everyone is different.

Your levels still seem within a pretty healthy range as far as long-term implications go (even when diagnosed, diabetes is usually a fairly slow-moving beast, and recent expert consensus for T1 suggests up to 25% of the time can be spent above range with only low-level increases in risk of developing diabetes complications).

Recent clinical studies have shown just how individual different people’s responses are to different food, particularly carbohydrate absorption and conversion into glucose. A myriad of factors including gut biome, enzyme levels and various other physiological factors can vastly affect the speed of absorption of different forms of carb for individuals, such that even pure glucose cannot be assumed to be the ‘fastest acting’.

Essentially, we have to develop our own menu, based on our tastes, preferences, calorific need, and individual response to foods. What Alan S described for himself as a ‘low spike, excellent nutrition menu that suited Alan’. This may involve moderate carb intake (depending on which types and amounts you find work well for you) or need something lower carb. It may or may not involve the need for a very low carb ketogenic approach - which is rather trickier to maintain long-term, especially when it comes to eating out, or social situations.

There’s a suggestion of a framework for evaluating how your current diet is suiting your BG in Alan S’s Test Review Adjust: https://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2006/10/test-review-adjust.html

Hope you continue to experiment and find things that work for you. And keep asking questions of the friendly, experienced folks here 🙂