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Coffee -- Good or Bad?

Grateful

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,399
Location
Kent, United Kingdom
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I'll admit it, I love coffee. I have about four mugs a day: three during and after breakfast, and one after lunch. (No sugar, no milk.)

I had got the impression that coffee was "good" for diabetics. But on closer reading of the Googled information, the consensus seems to be:
  1. Coffee helps prevent diabetes if you don't have it yet.
  2. However, if you are already diabetic, coffee raises BG levels.
Sigh.
 
Grateful said:
I'll admit it, I love coffee. However, if you are already diabetic, coffee raises BG levels.
Click to expand...

The only way to find out whether this is true for you is to test. Many type 2s drink coffee with no adverse effect on their blood sugar levels.
 
I have just made my second mug of heartstarter black no sugar coffee, my bgl will not be much higher after breakfast from my fasting one of 6.3.

I will continue to drink it.
 
For me that's rubbish..3 or 4 cups a day no BS effect whatsoever.
 
Coffee spikes me big time. Tea, too, if I have more than a couple of cups one after the other.

As a type 1 I can get around this with insulin.

But @Grateful it might well be the case that you have the same experience with coffee as @Tipetoo and @bulkbiker in that coffee doesn't spike you, and like @Goonergal suggests, I too would recommend testing to see whether it does or not.

 
Four cups a day? Lightweights! It’s food group for me, I can even drink it before bed and sleep soundly.
 
We have a percolator on the go all day - mostly for my husband, and some days I do not drink any whilst other days I might have two pints - with cream. I did not see any difference in my BG levels with or without coffee.
I do add a small amount of salt and a little cinnamon to my coffee - I don't use salt for anything else and I like the cinnamon.
 

Do you have one that keeps it hot all day? A nice 1970’s one like mine
 

Hi @Snapsy . . .

Your comment that both coffee and tea spike your blood-sugar is interesting for me . . .

Years ago, I was convinced that coffee affected my blood-sugar - a couple of coffees (black, no sugar) in the evening at home would always produce a higher level the next morning. I experimented with different brands and filters etc., no luck.

Eventually, after some chance events and putting 2 and 2 together, I realised that it was the WATER that was spiking me! Something in the pipes to my building was introducing something into the water that my system did not like. I became certain of this with further specific testing. After getting a medium-priced water filter for my kitchen, this connection between evening coffees and higher morning levels was eliminated. This taught me a lesson that you really can't discount ANYTHING when thinking about what might affect your levels!

Regards
Antony
 
I too love coffee and take two mugs of ground coffee with a little hot milk a day. It doesn’t seem to do any harm to my BS. I occasionally have a 3rd mug though - black with cream.
 
When coffee raises adrenaline and cortisol as well as BP in the morning it will spike me. I love my nespresso and not giving it up. I tend to drink a decaf with bf ( for the love of the crema) then make a regular and just drink eat the crema. Then combine what's left of both and drink it late morning/ early afternoon. This has helped. Trying to cut back to one cup a day or I don't drink enough water/ seltzer.
 
Grateful said:
However, if you are already diabetic, coffee raises BG levels.
Click to expand...
Just a snippet.
Goonergal said:
The only way to find out whether this is true for you is to test. Many type 2s drink coffee with no adverse effect on their blood sugar levels.
Click to expand...
Agree.
Snapsy said:
But @Grateful it might well be the case that you have the same experience with coffee as @Tipetoo and @bulkbiker in that coffee doesn't spike you, and like @Goonergal suggests, I too would recommend testing to see whether it does or not.
Click to expand...

The proof is in the pudding coffee, test results are in for me, this is what I have had this morning.

2 x 2 spoon heart starter granulated black coffee with no sugars.
1 black coffee no sugar pre breakfast.
1 black coffee no sugar during breakfast.



Granulated Robert Timms coffee out of a jar lowers bgl for me, I do not drink that stewed coffee just the instant at home.

Edit: Just in case you are wondering what I had for breakfast, I had a three egg and cheese omelette.

Edit 2: typos
 
Last edited by a moderator:

I now have fbg envy :-(
 
Guzzler said:
I now have fbg envy :-(
Click to expand...
I noticed this in your sig: Manners maketh man. William of Wykham

I had to write out "Manners maketh man" 100 times by a school teacher I had once, she was a holey terror at school but a very nice person outside of hours
 
Reading the responses so far: Phew, that's a relief. I only test every three months (in-clinic HbA1C) and the results have been good. I have been drinking the aforementioned 4 mugs of coffee per day all along. So, in terms of my (admittedly very relaxed) method of testing, things are going fine and there seems no point micro-managing the coffee. Another case of "don't believe everything you read in a Google search."

Thank you.
 
Tipetoo said:
I noticed this in your sig: Manners maketh man. William of Wykham

I had to write out "Manners maketh man" 100 times by a school teacher I had once, she was a holey terror at school but a very nice person outside of hours
Click to expand...

William of Wykham was a truly good man of the church which was, in the mediaeval, something of a novelty.
It was a daily reminder to me as I used to pass a small library every day on the bus to school and over the facade, carved into the stone was this adage. It is a good one.
 
I have max 2 cups of dark roast with 33% cream made in my Bodum ,doesn’t affect my Bg,
 
I have no problem taking one or two cups of coffee/cream (no sugar) with my breakfast. For example fasting blood sugar this morning is 5.4mmol/L whilst reading after two hours is 6.6mmol/L.
 
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