Breakfast is essential.

[catherinecherub]

Most of us will suffer with the dawn phenomenon from time to time and for some, it is a daily occurrence.

Would others agree that breakfast is essential regardless of your fasting readings? I know some seem to think that because their blood sugars are high when waking that it would be foolish to eat and send them higher.

I am of the opinion that breakfast actually stops the dawn phenomenon, somehow switches it off and gets your blood sugars sorted out. On the odd occasion that I have not eaten breakfast I find that they continue to rise well into late morning.

Am now wondering if this happens after every time that someone skips a meal regardless of time of day. Does the lack of food make your liver compensate every time or just in the morning?

Perhaps we should all make sure that regular meals, as well as exercise and plenty of fluids are essential for good management.

Answers on a postcard please. :wink:

 

[Marvin]

My morning BG is usually in the 8s or 9s. I then have breakfast (cereal, toast, fruit and coffee) and by 12.30 I'm bordering on hypo! Wonder if the 1000mg of Metformin and 80mg of Gliclazide with breakfast might account for it? I just wish I could keep the levels down all day, but I'm lucky if half the time its below 8 despite another 1000mg of Met with my evening meal.

 

[anniep]

Most of us will suffer with the dawn phenomenon from time to time and for some, it is a daily occurrence.

Would others agree that breakfast is essential regardless of your fasting readings? I know some seem to think that because their blood sugars are high when waking that it would be foolish to eat and send them higher.

I am of the opinion that breakfast actually stops the dawn phenomenon, somehow switches it off and gets your blood sugars sorted out. On the odd occasion that I have not eaten breakfast I find that they continue to rise well into late morning.

Am now wondering if this happens after every time that someone skips a meal regardless of time of day. Does the lack of food make your liver compensate every time or just in the morning?

Perhaps we should all make sure that regular meals, as well as exercise and plenty of fluids are essential for good management.

Answers on a postcard please. :wink:

As someone who is affected greatly by DP, I have to say if only it is as simple as eating breakfast. I have tried every suggestion that I could find to control it, from eating on rising to different combinations of food, eating just before bed, with different combinations of food. And found the only thing that works for me is a carb free breakfast (as far as possible as I may include things like mushrookms or quorn which have carbs but not many), and then low carb full stop, for the rest of the time. I also use chia seeds and milk thistle, I can't say exactly which has the most effect but together they seems to work and for now I will carry on with them.

BUt it also depends what carbs I eat, it i eat anythig wheat in it eg pasta or bread the evening before then my BG is up and stubborn until about 1.00pm the next day. BUt a similar amount of carb in potatoes does not seem to afffect me so much.


SO yes breakfast is impoertant to me, but what I eat is even more inportant, if my breakfast is wholemeal toast or cereal, then it makes the DP worse and my BG levels remain at about 12 unitl after lunch. Quorn bacon and eggs and they wil drop to below 8 (or lower) within 2 hours after eating

 

[Ka-Mon]

I thought that as diabetics it is essential to have breakfast if only for the reason for taking ones medication. Don't know much about dawn phenomenon, my fasting BGs are now, mostly, lower than at diagnosis. I've even had some 4s, no idea why though.

 

[catherinecherub]

Hi Ka-Mon,

Not all Type 2's have to take medication. Some delay it until they eat later.

The dawn phenomenon, explained briefly, is due to the natural overnight release of hormones and some of these increase insulin resistance.
Hope this helps,

Catherine.

 

[noblehead]

I eat breakfast most days for no other reason than I am hungry in a morning! :roll:

I don't often get DP and can go till lunch time if I have eaten late the previous evening without a rise in my bg, but much prefer to eat first thing as I believe a good breakfast can set you up for the day. Rather than skip breakfast, I'd much rather skip lunch, so if I eat well in the morning I can, and do occasionally wait until 5-6pm before I eat again.

So yes I agree that breakfast is essential for optimal health, but accept that some can't face food on a morning and much prefer to eat later in the day.

Nigel

 

[sorefinger]

Cant go without my rice krispies in a morning..... :mrgreen:

 

[Synonym]

I agree that breakfast is essential and would add that it is the most important meal of the day, setting the trend of your levels for the rest of the day. Even if my numbers are a little high I always eat breakfast and they are usually settled back to my normal parameters by the 2 hour afterwards test.

I also think that skipped meals cause the same problems as DP as on the odd occasion in the past when I have not been able to eat then my numbers rise in just the same way. I would agree that ideally we should be eating regular meals and if easier then it should be smaller meals and more of them. I always carry emergency rations and water - had to buy a larger bag! :roll:

 

[HLW]

Wonder if the 1000mg of Metformin and 80mg of Gliclazide with breakfast might account for it?

I'd assume so, can you take the gliclazide at lunch instead, I can't remember when it's meant to be taken?

 

[markd]

I never have breakfast at all (except for the very occasional, and traditional, two lightly poached asprin after a night out) but very rarely suffer from any dawn phenomema. Occasionally, I'd be a bit high in the morning and then it might - or not - have resolved itself by lunch. It always seems to drop back to normal 2hrs after lunch, on those odd occasions.

If you look at the graphs from Christiansen's superb presentation of just what is normal: http://www.diabetes-symposium.org/index ... t=4&id=322
you'll see that only one, I think, of his volunteers ever shows a significant dawn rise at all. It is visible on the single multicoloured tangled spaghetti graph showing all subject values.

About 20 or 30 slides in to the presentation, he shows the results of trying breakfast v nobreakfast and the result is that having breakfast *increases* the average mean glucose (measured between 8am and 8pm) from 7.06 to 7.42

There are probably all sorts of good reasons why having breakfast is a good idea for most people, but controlling BG during the waking hours doesn't look to be one of them. Of course, these are healthy volunteers we are looking at here.

As posted elsewhere, I've now decided to switch to A1c at home every couple months, rather than much daily testing, but using up some almost out of date strips, I was a little higher than usual this morning - 5.1 - so might test again before lunch just to see. Yesterday, I was 4.4 but its probably just the random accuracy limits - or, thinking about it, I did have burgers in bread rolls last night, which is the most bread I've had in a month!

mark.

 

[badmedisin]

I recently changed my basal insulin and my bg is now always high in the morning. I eat breakfast because I go hypo if I do a correction dose without eating. I am not a breakfast person and it's hard to find food that I can tolerate in the mornings. I don't even want to think about cereal (grimmo!) and no time to start cooking bacon, sadly.

Weirdly I woke up with a bg of 7.1 on Sunday, which is the only good morning level I've had since switching insulin. The difference to my routine was that I had 2 bottles of Sol on Saturday and half a pizza at 2.30am. I'm not convinced this is a feasible way to control Dawn phenomenon long term...