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Does milk affect BS level

C

chester1964

Member
Hi everyone
I am at the very top end of pre diabetic range and am trialling a continuous monitor at the moment. Can anyone please advise if milk in latte coffee affects Bs, if so is full fat or skimmed better/worse, there are conflicting reports on Dr Google. What alternatives to cows milk are best ? Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks
 
In short yes it does. Lactose is a form of sugar. How much it does varies from person to person and their degree of tolerance though. A latte has around 10g carbs per 100ml - which really isn’t much at all. The smallest size is usually around 225 and the largest 550 or more. So that could be 55g-60g of carbs in one drink and at the minimum 20-25g

edit *I have taken these figures from a site describing what I now think is a packaged latter. In reality a fresh latte is probably a bit under half these numbers.

Better would be americano with barely any. Another option would be real cream (not the fake stuff). You need less of it so there’s fewer carbs in the first place and then there’s extra fat slows the absorption of carbs. You still get the glucose, your body still has to deal with it but it’ll be a longer slower rise rather than a quicker spike. I choose to try my best to avoid either. In that vein full fat milk is better than skim.

Reports advising low fat stuff aren’t considering the effect carbs have but are spouting the usual generic advice low fat is better for everyone - but for diabetes not at the expense of more carbs it’s not. Also low fat stuff often has more additives and carbs to make up for the removed fat. Always check the labels for carbs (not the “of which sugars” bit.
 
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Am prediabetic too but get normal sugars due to low carb diet. Cow milk doesn't suit me. Even if I add 200ml of it in coffee, it spikes my sugar. After drinking cow milk coffee(after 1 hour or so), I feel shaky and hungry also. I check my sugar and it is normal.
For my mother who is diabetic, 200 ml of milk coffee spikes sugars. If Fasting is 110mg/dl, 1 hour post drinking cow milk coffee the range is 145mg/dl....
 
chester1964 said:
Hi everyone
I am at the very top end of pre diabetic range and am trialling a continuous monitor at the moment. Can anyone please advise if milk in latte coffee affects Bs, if so is full fat or skimmed better/worse, there are conflicting reports on Dr Google. What alternatives to cows milk are best ? Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Hi and welcome

It does mine. There's a fair amount of lactose in milk and it will be absorbed more quickly, being hot. A small latte will take me from 5ish to 9.6 in 20 mins (from CGM data) but for me it will be cleared by 2 hrs.

I use double cream (zero carb) at home now. It is almost entirely milk fat and doesn't affect my BG level at all. When out no-one seems to do cream so I have either espresso or machiatto. Skimmed and semi-skimmed milk has a higher percentage of lactose by volume than entire milk.

I have never used them myself but all the non-dairy "milks" I've looked at seem to have as many carbs as cow's milk. There might be some that haven't. I understand they are intended as "low-fat" items.
 
Morning @chester1964 and welcome to the forum.

Milk affects my blood glucose. You can pour a lot of lactose (milk sugar) into latte made with steamed milk.

Double cream contains less carbohydrate than skimmed, semi-skimmed or whole milk because during the cream-making process, the sugar is consumed by the bacteria that curdle the milk, leaving us with a delicious high-fat, low-carb cream that IMO makes the perfect partner for coffee.

However you brew your coffee, making it with water and then adding double cream, allows the coffee flavour to shine through. You would use less cream than your current milk consumption, so that would reduce your carb intake further. I find 2-3 teaspoons ample per cup of coffee.
 
chester1964 said:
What alternatives to cows milk are best ? Any advice greatly appreciated. Thanks
Click to expand...
Not all plant-based milks are created equal. Of the available options, oat milk is the worst for raising blood glucose.

Unsweetened almond milk is the least bad, but check the small print before purchase. I was caught out a few years ago with almond milk labelled *all natural, no added sugars." Among the list of ingredients on the back of the carton was maltodextrin. Apparently, this is within the regulations.
 
saky said:
Am prediabetic too but get normal sugars due to low carb diet. Cow milk doesn't suit me. Even if I add 200ml of it in coffee, it spikes my sugar. After drinking cow milk coffee(after 1 hour or so), I feel shaky and hungry also. I check my sugar and it is normal.
For my mother who is diabetic, 200 ml of milk coffee spikes sugars. If Fasting is 110mg/dl, 1 hour post drinking cow milk coffee the range is 145mg/dl....
Click to expand...
You post is confusing me a little who’s responses/levels are whose. How can it both spike you and give you normal levels?

A 1mmol (36mg) rise is hardly a spike, is within anccuracy tolerances of any meter and at one hour, rather than the usual two, probably completely normal. Non diabetic totally metabolically healthy people rise and fall after glucose too. They just tend to do it smaller and faster.

Testing on rising v an hour later could be mixing in a foot on floor phenomenon into the equation. Test at another time if day to check.

You may not suit cow milk for another reason but if your blood glucose is normal then I doubt the shaky response is down to that particularly at those types of readings.
 
LivingLightly said:
Morning @chester1964 and welcome to the forum.

Milk affects my blood glucose. You can pour a lot of lactose (milk sugar) into latte made with steamed milk.

Double cream contains less carbohydrate than skimmed, semi-skimmed or whole milk because during the cream-making process, the sugar is consumed by the bacteria that curdle the milk, leaving us with a delicious high-fat, low-carb cream that IMO makes the perfect partner for coffee.

However you brew your coffee, making it with water and then adding double cream, allows the coffee flavour to shine through. You would use less cream than your current milk consumption, so that would reduce your carb intake further. I find 2-3 teaspoons ample per cup of coffee.
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Ummm....cream is usually mechanically separated from the rest of the milk. Bacteria aren't involved (hopefully). You may be thinking of cheese-making.
 
chester1964 said:
Hi everyone
I am at the very top end of pre diabetic range and am trialling a continuous monitor at the moment. Can anyone please advise if milk in latte coffee affects Bs, if so is full fat or skimmed better/worse, there are conflicting reports on Dr Google. What alternatives to cows milk are best ? Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Click to expand...
Yes the milk does affect blood sugars. I have a coffee shop here who I give my Unsweetened almond milk and the make my one shot Americano with said milk.
Also cream otherwise.
 
HSSS said:
A latte has around 10g carbs per 100ml
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Where do the carbs come from?
Milk (at least my carton of semi skimmed) has only 4.7 grams per 100 ml, and there are no carbs in the espresso that's added. So to my counting, this would give you about 3 grams of carbs per 100 ml.

edit: looks to be the difference between simply making a homemade latte with espresso and milk, and some ready made bought products, all clear now!
 
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Antje77 said:
Where do the carbs come from?
Milk (at least my carton of semi skimmed) has only 4.7 grams per 100 ml, and there are no carbs in the espresso that's added. So to my counting, this would give you about 3 grams of carbs per 100 ml.
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I think it's less the total amount and more that milk in a coffee or latte hits the digestive system hot, so gets quickly absorbed/digested. I tend to drink coffee without any food round it so add on the empty stomach as well. If there's only around 4g of glucose in the bloodstream most of the time, even a couple of grams of carb/glucose arriving very quickly might probably push up levels equally quickly.

But there wouldn't be a great deal of resulting glucose in total, so it should be cleared rapidly. That's consistent with how it works for me anyway.
 
chester1964 said:
Hi everyone
I am at the very top end of pre diabetic range and am trialling a continuous monitor at the moment. Can anyone please advise if milk in latte coffee affects Bs, if so is full fat or skimmed better/worse, there are conflicting reports on Dr Google. What alternatives to cows milk are best ? Any advice greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Click to expand...
I am lactose intolerant, so my body reacts badly to the lactose. Lactose is a form of sugar. Lactose will raise your BS. If I have a tea with regular milk my BS rises, and has gone as high at 11.3 mmol/ls just on the tea alone. Might I suggest you try lactose free milk. We can get lactose free 33% cream here in Canada. You can get lactose free diary in the UK too. So, if you are like me and do not like alternative milks in your tea and coffee, lactose free milk is a great alternative and you will not taste the difference. (Edited for grammar purposes).
 
Whole milk pre Homogenisation, would settle in the bottle, with the cream (fat) floating to the top, hence the rush to be first to open a new bottle.
Semi skimmed milk, has some of the cream skimmed off the top, leaving the milk about 4% fat.
Skimmed milk has virtually all the cream skimmed off, leaving only 1 - 2% fat left.
Both Semi and skimmed are then pressurised, to break up the fat globules and disperse them throughout the milk.
Only the milk part contains Carbs.
So skimmed is 98 - 99% containing carbs, semi is approx' 96% containing carbs, and cream should be 0%.
Years ago we had Gold top milk, which was almost exclusively, from Jersey cows, whose milk had a higher fat content.
 
It does for me too, I don’t take milk in tea or coffee so very rarely use it, but when I was on hypo inducing meds and out and about if I went a little low a cortardo would bring me back up nicely
 
Antje77 said:
Where do the carbs come from?
Milk (at least my carton of semi skimmed) has only 4.7 grams per 100 ml, and there are no carbs in the espresso that's added. So to my counting, this would give you about 3 grams of carbs per 100 ml.
Click to expand...
In this case google late last night and I i suspect this site https://www.eatthismuch.com/food/nutrition/latte,85758/ based on my history. Looking with wide awake eyes it may be this is a specific product and not typical Although for the packaged drinks rather than freshly made it could be more accurate.

Today I can only agree most sites do quote considerably less. More like about 4g per 100ml.

Sorry for confusion. I’ve amended my original post to reflect this.
 
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