Unexpected results

[MrBuzz]

So this morning for various reasons I didn’t get a chance to have breakfast. I checked my blood glucose before lunch expecting them to have dropped lower than usual without having had any carbs through the morning and having taken gliclazide in the morning. However they’d stayed exactly the same as my test first thing in the morning.

I’d heard that intermittent fasting could be beneficial. Is that wrong? Has anyone else experienced similar or was I just expecting the wrong thing?

 

[RJN123]

My blood sugar seems to be stable in the morning - doesn’t matter if I have breakfast at 7 or 11, it is always 5-5.5. I assume it was a positive and a sign that my medication and weight loss and exercise had improve my stability.

 

[Leadinglights]

In the absence of food your liver tries to be helpful and releases glucose into your system which is the likely reason for your reading was the same.

 

[harbottle]

The metabolism is quite complex and tries to maintain glucose at a fixed point by releasing hormones to stimulate glucose release or by making glucose from fats and proteins, also stimulated by hormones.

in people with T2D this mechanism may not work properly so fasting may not see levels drop as it would in a non-diabetic. If the background glucose cannot be cleared due to insulin resistance or lack of insulin, it remains in the system.

In non-diabetics fasting sees a small decrease in blood sugar every hour.

 

[Dragonheart]

As others have said it’s likely your liver trying to maintain levels it thinks are normal. In the mornings this gets labelled dawn phenomenon but it can happen at any time of the day the liver thinks your levels needs a boost, most commonly after fasting for a while or intense exercise. Intermittent fasting will reduce the level it recognises a normal over time and it’ll only kick in at lower - better, more normal and necessary- levels. It won’t happen in a day though

IF also helps “drain” down a liver stuff with too much glycogen which gets stored as fat in the liver (non alcoholic fatty liver) which makes type 2 worse and stimulates the utilisation of body fat for energy (weight loss). So whilst for those few hours it’s raising blood glucose it’s helping in the long term - draining the swamp as it were

 

[harbottle]

It's the pancreas and central nervous system.

It's a constant feedback loop with insulin and glucagon being released by the pancreas to clear glucose (And store it as glycogen) or make glucose (Via glycogen release or gluconeogenesis) in order to keep levels at a fixed point. Alpha cells detect low levels of glucose in the blood and beta cells detect high levels. The two cells also affect each other, with beta cells suppressing alpha cells and vice-versa - which is possibly why they are clustered together in the islets.

In fasting periods, the central nervous system actually triggers other hormones makes muscles insulin resistant (Hence the observation of 'glucose sparing' or physiological insulin resistant). People on low carb diets tend to have smaller stores of glycogen (For obvious reasons!). Low carb diets can also make the pancreas slower at responding to rises in blood sugar, hence why 'carb loading' is required before an oral glucose test as the result may be incorrect.

 

[MrBuzz]

Thanks for the replies everyone, really helpful as always! I learn so much here.