• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Blood sugar envy...

LeftPeg

Well-Known Member
Messages
210
Location
Gateshead
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Conflict
One of the young lads I manage is known for his terrible lifestyle. Booze, fags & fast food are the order of the day.

Anyway, he’s always saying he’d like to try my glucose monitor, and on Friday I gave in and let him (fresh lancet obviously).

He came in that day with a McDonald’s breakfast, nursing a hangover, and he tested about an hour after a lunch consisting of two Greggs pasties, a packet of Doritos, and a custard donut. His blood sugar was....5.0

Don’t you just hate him? Ha.

Not making any sort of serious point here, as that sort of diet will take its toll eventually. Just wanted to share my feeling of envy!
 
Not necessarily...some people won the genetic lottery when it comes to metabolic regulation.
Whilst a bad diet predisposes a lot of people to metabolic dysregulation over time, some end up fine with or without eating right.
There are those who live a spartan life, that should ensure them decent health, yet they end up with one of the so called life style ailments.

That said, until he knows his insulin profile after those kinds of meals, it may be premature for him to assume he is getting away with his current poor food choices.
This is due to the fact that, his body may be using more than what could be considered a normal amount of insulin, to bring his blood glucose to normal levels....The amount of Insulin used to do the work insulin does in the body is the canary in the coal mine, when it comes to metabolic regulation.

When there is metabolic dysregulation, long before a person's blood glucose gets to the threshold, for which a definitive diagnosis of T2DM is made, most people will be using more and more insulin, to get their BG values to the so called 'normal threshold' so their tests post prandial will be perfectly normal values for BG (Hyperinsulinemia)
This is what then leads to the Insulin Resistance, which means more and more insulin is used resulting in worsening IR leading to higher and higher BG values, and if not addressed will eventually hit a BG value that will amount to values for which a diagnosis of T2DM is then made.
 

Jealous of the donuts
 
Some peoples' constitutions seem incredibly robust against to consequences of poor lifestyle.
We only have the statistics to show the probability of such an individual eventually suffering any consequences, well beyond the time when whatever jollies he gets out of his behaviour and lifestyle hold sway.
Whatever genetic lottery drew my T1D ticket out, I am at least grateful not to have had part of my 'misspent youth' be potentially injurious to my health beyond the challenges of managing TID itself.
 
Like the people who eat whatever they want yet are very slim.

I understand what you're saying. But I wonder how this guy feels internally. I quit smoking five years ago, drink maybe once every two months, and started the LCHF diet when I was diagnosed with diabetes in July 2018. I haven't felt this good in years. I don't miss the fast food bloating, the sluggish feelings, the burning lungs and chronic smoker's cough, etc. at all.
 
Reminds me of a fellow crewman on the RAF launch Sea Otter his nickname was Split Pin tall and extremely slim we could never quite understand how he could eat as much as twice or even three times as much as the rest of us but never put an ounce of fat on.
 
If he still had an almighty hangover after a big binge drinking session he could have had low blood sugars well before he ate that breakfast, which were only starting to rise when he tested. Alcohol does funny things, and I have read somewhere that hangovers are often a result of low blood sugars in cases like this.
 

What you don’t know is his insulin concentration. It could very well be that his pancreas is working overtime in order to maintain glucose homeostasis. This is how it all starts. Obviously I’m not suggesting he has any issues, just that a glucose test only tells half the story
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…