• Guest, the forum is undergoing some upgrades and so the usual themes will be unavailable for a few days. In the meantime, you can use the forum like normal. We'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Drinking black tea

Miniman76

Member
Hello

I was wondering if I could get some help / advice on why black tea (little bit of milk and no sugar) always requires 5 units of novarapid after I drink it. It doesn't make a lot of sense because coffee with one sugar and milk requires no insulin as it doesn't put my levels up by more then 0.5 mmol

Thanks for your help
 
Can’t say that is my experience with tea drinking. I just have tea with milk and have no need to inject for it.
 
Last edited:
@Miniman76 just a thought.....are you finding this happening every time you drink black tea OR would you say its more in the mornings (suggesting DP??) or evenings (basal running out?)....is there any pattern to it??
 
What's DP? And no it's just an all the time thing. Not a pattern that I can see.
As @Robinredbreast just mention DP is Dawn Phenonium or Liver Dump....its our bodies releasing glucose to get us ready for the day ahead.
Was just trying to see if there was any pattern to what is happening. I guess it goes to prove that we are all VERY different in the way our bodies act to different things
 
Can't say I have ever seen this. I usually drink mine as strong as possible, black or with quite literally a few drops of milk. I get through at least 3 a day at work usually.

I wonder if we all have these individual anomalies that will cause our blood glucose to rise. For me, its every time I drive.
 
I drink decaf tea and coffee both black ...te, coffee and skimmed milk even spikes me .i even can rescue a hypo with milk although that shouldnt happen apparently as its a fat
Guess we are all differant in this topsy turvy world !!
 
Thanks everyone for the personal experiences. It's really reassuring and interesting to know that there are other diabetics out there with their own little bgl quirks.

I guess it's just a weird thing my body does that's good to know
 
I drink decaf tea and coffee both black ...te, coffee and skimmed milk even spikes me .i even can rescue a hypo with milk although that shouldnt happen apparently as its a fat
Guess we are all differant in this topsy turvy world !!
Sorry, but what makes you think that skimmed milk is fat? Milk contains sugar in the form of lactose but a tablespoons or two in your tea shouldn’t have significant effect on your BG.
 
I have to take some units of insulin to cover the effect of coffee.
I have read that caffeine can influence the liver to release stored glucose but the size of this effect varies from person to person.
DSo.. I wonder whether the caffeine in your lack tea might be the culprit.
Another thought is to try drinking black tea later in the day and see whether that seems to affect your BSL then also.
 
Tea n and coffee spike my sugar as well. I drink tea black, but coffee with lot of milk. For tea I generally have to inject ca 1u insulin minimum.... Bit oddly same spike does not happen for diet coke...
 
I have no idea because I would not normally test bg after a drink. This makes me wonder if you are micro managing your levels too much? Different foods take varying amounts of time to affect levels and often do so over a long period. So if you had a meal then three hours later drink your tea, you cannot really be sure if it is the food or the tea which is raising your levels.
 
I have no idea because I would not normally test bg after a drink. This makes me wonder if you are micro managing your levels too much? Different foods take varying amounts of time to affect levels and often do so over a long period. So if you had a meal then three hours later drink your tea, you cannot really be sure if it is the food or the tea which is raising your levels.

Thanks for the thoughts. With the tea it's a thing that happens all the time. No matter if I have it at 11am (after my initial bgl morning spike) or 11pm it's always 5 units of my levels go through the roof.
 
Hello

I was wondering if I could get some help / advice on why black tea (little bit of milk and no sugar) always requires 5 units of novarapid after I drink it. It doesn't make a lot of sense because coffee with one sugar and milk requires no insulin as it doesn't put my levels up by more then 0.5 mmol

Thanks for your help

Hi,

I've only found that particularly milky drinks (latte for example) have any effect on my blood sugar. How many cups do you drink of black tea and what is your carb to insulin ratio? E.g. I can't imagine the black tea has 50g of carbs in it!???

Best wishes,
Tom
 
Thanks for the thoughts. With the tea it's a thing that happens all the time. No matter if I have it at 11am (after my initial bgl morning spike) or 11pm it's always 5 units of my levels go through the roof.
Is it always the same brand? Most tea that comes in bags has sugar added as a flavour enhancer. (And nope, it's not mentioned on the packaging. And yes, it's in the expensive brands too. You don't want to know how many different teabags I cut up one afternoon...). It's not a lot, but then I don't need insulin, so...? In the pics, the little white granules are sugar. You might want to open up your usual brand and check just how much of it is in there? Again, it's a tiny little bit, most of the time... The most I found was in the strawberry flavoured one.
 

Attachments

  • tea with sugar 01.jpg
    tea with sugar 01.jpg
    146.6 KB · Views: 382
  • tea with sugar 02.jpg
    tea with sugar 02.jpg
    163.9 KB · Views: 410
  • tea with sugar 03.jpg
    tea with sugar 03.jpg
    156.8 KB · Views: 394
Sorry if I misunderstood but are you saying that this sugar is in my bag standard tetly tea bags ?
Carol
 
Back
Top