Cheese causing my BS to rise?

[sololite]

I have had a sneaking suspicion that cheese is causing a steady rise in BS overnight and wondered if anyone else has this or am I barking up the wrong tree.

Yesterday was a good example when I had good control from breakfast time, ate my evening meal at 7pm but had a lot of cheese on its own around 9pm. At 10pm my BS was perfect but when I reviewed my overnight libre graph I had climbed steadily from midnight until I woke up.

Can a lot of cheese in the evening cause this effect and if so why given its low carb?

Thanks for all your wisdom

 

[helli]

In the absence of carbs, your body will break down protein to provide the glucose it requires.
This maybe what you are seeing.

For this reason, when I eat a very low carb meal (e.g. an omelette), I still need to take insulin.
The dose can be complex to calculate and the BG rise is later than with carbs.
I have see a rul eof thumb to be half as much insulin to protein as insulin to carbs. However, in my experience, the insulin to protein ratio varies significantly between different types of protein - eggs is different to cheese which is different to prawns which is different to nuts ...
This is why I quickly gave up on low carb diet.

 

[Robin]

Cheese has the same effect for me. I tend to stick a random unit on my bolus dose. The up side is that it also seems to banish my dawn rise the following morning.

 

[sololite]

In the absence of carbs, your body will break down protein to provide the glucose it requires.
This maybe what you are seeing.

For this reason, when I eat a very low carb meal (e.g. an omelette), I still need to take insulin.
The dose can be complex to calculate and the BG rise is later than with carbs.
I have see a rul eof thumb to be half as much insulin to protein as insulin to carbs. However, in my experience, the insulin to protein ratio varies significantly between different types of protein - eggs is different to cheese which is different to prawns which is different to nuts ...
This is why I quickly gave up on low carb diet.

Thanks Helli. I would find low carb diet very hard too . Plenty for me to experiment with following your advice. Thank you

 

[sololite]

Cheese has the same effect for me. I tend to stick a random unit on my bolus dose. The up side is that it also seems to banish my dawn rise the following morning.

Thanks Robin, glad I'm not alone. I will experiment and see how it goes. I'd love to get rid of that Dawn effect as the only thing that has ever stopped it has been skipping my evening meal.

 

[Proud to be erratic]

Also, and my understanding is far from perfect in this dietary aspect, but cream and many types of cheese can slow down digestion of a meal to the point that the meal bolus has dissipated. But there is still food being digested which then releases its glucose into your blood - but there is no longer any active bolus on board. It seems this can occur when the cheese is incorporated into the meal or eaten at the end of the meal. Your cheese at 9 pm would fit that scenario.

I love cheese and will happily snack on it any time of day. I have not found a way of preventing this sort of unplanned kickback other than not gorging myself on cheese at one sitting. So particularly in mid or late evening I ration myself to very modest portions, choosing to have really small tasters of as many different types of cheese that we have in the larder / fridge - rather than attacking the real Wensleydale in earnest, which I used to do in years gone by. I'm not so stingy with my cheese portions during the day and find that subsequent activity and exercise can mitigate my excess.

 

[Lucyr]

I have had a sneaking suspicion that cheese is causing a steady rise in BS overnight and wondered if anyone else has this or am I barking up the wrong tree.

Yesterday was a good example when I had good control from breakfast time, ate my evening meal at 7pm but had a lot of cheese on its own around 9pm. At 10pm my BS was perfect but when I reviewed my overnight libre graph I had climbed steadily from midnight until I woke up.

Can a lot of cheese in the evening cause this effect and if so why given its low carb?

Thanks for all your wisdom

Are you taking insulin for the cheese? Maybe try reducing the cheese or adding some insulin?

 

[Dave W]

Cheeses in general are very low carb though some of the softer spreadable and processed cheeses contain about four times as many carbs as most of the others.
Chart is from McCance and Widdowson's CoFiD. Carbs per 100 g in right-hand column, other column is protein.

 

[Leadinglights]

Cheeses in general are very low carb though some of the softer spreadable and processed cheeses contain about four times as many carbs as most of the others.
Chart is from McCance and Widdowson's CoFiD. Carbs per 100 g in right-hand column, other column is protein.
View attachment 28094

Thank you for posting that, really useful info.

 

[sololite]

Are you taking insulin for the cheese? Maybe try reducing the cheese or adding some insulin?

I don't take insulin with the cheese currently. As you can tell I am still learning so much about how my body interacts with food and all the other factors that affect my BS after the removal of my pancreas. Thanks for taking an interest.
Regards, Chris

 

[rebrascora]

I find protein starts to release 2 hours after eating, so I don't bolus up front for it and a small chunk of cheese at bedtime should not need anything. If it was a really large chunk of cheese or cheese with ham thereby increasing the protein content before bed, I might increase my evening Levemir by a unit or two to help cover it rather than wake up 2 hours later to inject Fiasp for it. It depends what my levels were when I ate the cheese and how much exercise I had done that day and the day before. My muscles will suck up quite a lot of slow release glucose overnight when I have done extended exercise like hiking, so a bit of protein at bedtime can help counteract that, particularly if I have reduced my Levemir down to zero and I am still having problems with nocturnal hypos after exercise.

 

[nonethewiser]

If I were to snack on cheese late evening then guaranteed would wake up with high bg levels without preventative measures, made this mistake few times over because I love cheese.

On injections it was hard to deal with but now being on pump just set temporary basal rate to deal with gradual rise in bg.

 

[sololite]

Thanks. I'm mad for cheese too and hadn't been educated to expect this effect. I am going to skip my mid evening cheese 'course' for a few days and see what happens .