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

Blood sugar level after rapid intake of 3kg granulated sugar

R

resander

Well-Known Member
Messages
122
Location
London, Dagenham
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I have just looked at 'Living with Diabetes' section 'Blood sugar levels in diagnosing diabetes' at this website. I am puzzled by the limit value for '2 hours after meal' which is 11.1 mmol/l or more. I don't understand how it can be a fixed limit value. Assume a healthy person dissolves 3kg sugar in water and quickly drinks it. My guess is that the blood level would shoot up and be higher than 11.1 nmol/l after 2 hours and go below 11.1 mmol/l some hours later. The healthy person would be incorrectly diagnosed as diabetic.

Or does the digestive system block massive amounts of granulated sugar being converted to blood sugar?

I really would like to understand this...
 
Well '2 hours after a meal' I'm guessing means after eating an actual meal rather than trying to drink 3kilos of diluted sugar - which is an awful lot, I'm not sure any healthy person would even try that let alone manage it before starting to feel ill!
 
If everything is working correctly in the body many people will not see that kind of reading at two hours no matter what they consume.

During those two hour our organs and hormones will be working hard to balance the glucose in your blood. You will produce insulin to turn the sugar into immediate energy or fat stores. There are processes with the kidneys to encourage the sugar to be expelled from the body. You will get hot and thirsty to encourage you to drink and help flush out some of the excess glucose.
 
I also thought that a healthy person would get very sick or end up in A&E or worse after that much sugar. But what if the person eats a real food meal that is very high in carbohydrates unknown to him/her and after 2 hours the reading is 11.3 nmmol/l? Is that because the person is ill with diabetes 2 or is it because two hours is not enough to get the blood sugar value below 11.1? In practise, anyone testing would/should not eat a high carbohydrate meal before seriously testing and also retest if the value is above the limit 11.1.
 
resander said:
Assume a healthy person dissolves 3kg sugar in water and quickly drinks it.
Click to expand...
Drinking that much at once, would surely trigger the bodies reflex action to vomit it up, I know this is hypothetical (no pun intended) question.

I have seen some people vomit after drinking the glucose testing brew at the pathology shop, big rush to the toilets.
 
The standard protocol for a glucose tolerance test is 75g of glucose dissolved in water, drunk within 3 minutes, i think.
Which is very different from 3kg!

There are a number of different requirements for the test which combine to ensure that everyone gets a comparable experience - showing those whose bodies are able to handle that amount of glucose under those conditions - which separates the ones with impaired glucose tolerance from those without.
 
resander said:
I have just looked at 'Living with Diabetes' section 'Blood sugar levels in diagnosing diabetes' at this website. I am puzzled by the limit value for '2 hours after meal' which is 11.1 mmol/l or more. I don't understand how it can be a fixed limit value. Assume a healthy person dissolves 3kg sugar in water and quickly drinks it. My guess is that the blood level would shoot up and be higher than 11.1 nmol/l after 2 hours and go below 11.1 mmol/l some hours later. The healthy person would be incorrectly diagnosed as diabetic.

Or does the digestive system block massive amounts of granulated sugar being converted to blood sugar?

I really would like to understand this...
Click to expand...

You are talking about about diagnosing diabetes with an oral glucose tolerance test, which involves drinking 75g pure glucose (ready mixed). If a person is above 11.1mmol/ at 2 hours after finishing the drink they can be diagnosed with diabetes. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/oral-glucose-tolerance-test.html

What should the OGTT results be?
People without diabetes
  • Fasting value (before test): under 6 mmol/L
  • At 2 hours: under 7.8 mmol/L
People with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT)
  • Fasting value (before test): 6.0 to 7.0 mmol/L
  • At 2 hours: 7.9 to 11.0 mmol/L
Diabetic levels
  • Fasting value (before test): over 7.0 mmol/L
  • At 2 hours: over 11.0 mmol/L

As this is pure glucose with no fat and no protein to hinder digestion, the peak of the spike will be early, up to the first hour, then will fall. It is the level it falls to by 2 hours that is important, not the actual peak.
 
Hi
Just to confuse things further ....... my fasting levels are usually under 6 mmol/L but I am diabetic so where would I fall in the table above?
Edited to add - but I'm not going to try the GTT any time soon!
 
Back
Top