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Fruit info

S

Stupot1

Member
Hi I have type 2 just diagnosed (67) score & have started metformin and life style changes are ongoing.
1. Is there a guide the doctors might use, like the reduction they might expect from one 500mg / day of this tablet or is it a bit of a stab in the dark. They aim to get me to 4 tablets / day in 4weeks, just wondering how they came to this conclusion?
2. What are everyone’s thoughts on fruit, Apples, Pears, Orange’s, Grape’s & Bananas etc.
We have all grown up with fruit is good for you and eat as much as possible, just worried about the implications of this regards their sugars on someone with Diabetes?
Thanks in advance
 
Hi @Stupot1 and welcome to the forum.

Apples, Pears, Orange’s, Grape’s & Bananas are all somewhat high in carbs and I for one would tend to avoid them and I am not alone in that, blue berries and red berries such as strawberries are a safer bet but in moderation.

As to your first question I do not really know the answer though I believe Metformin effects different people in different ways so I think it's probably a bit of guesswork an informed guess but still a guess that is just my opinion and others may know different.
 

This is not an definitive answer.
It all depends on you and what happens after eating. For most of us, fruit could be a problem. The high carbs, sugars (fructose) can be a reason why your blood glucose levels could be stubbornly high.
Personally, I would say that you need to use a glucometer to find out.
I can have small pieces of lower carb fruit, like berries, apple, pear. But the likes of exotic, tropical fruits such as pineapple are known to be not recommended.
Bananas, the older they are, the higher in carbs they are.

Keep asking.
 
Hello @Stupot1 ,

Far as I know there's not really a guide, as everyone's different... How high or low is their insulin resistance/sensitivity, their insulin output, their liver dumps... So it's a bit of a trial and error to find the right dosage. That said, you're looking into dietary changes, so if you start low carbing you're likely not to actually need metformin before long.

Fruit is problematic for a number of reasons. There's a lot of sugar in there, but the fructose is also considered a toxin by the liver. As most T2's suffer metabolic syndrome (A combination of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, morbid obesity, diabetes and non alcoholic fatty liver disease), putting fructose into an already struggling liver would not be a good idea. For the bulk of us, it's just berries that are okay. Best way to have those though is in full fat greek yoghurt, so the fats in the yoghurt mitigate any possible spike from the fruit, besides filling you up. There's a lot of good stuff in fruit, I'll not argue their merits far as vitamins and such go, but.... It's nothing you can't find in veggies instead for instance.

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/ might help some too.

Good luck,
Jo
 
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Stupot1 said:
We have all grown up with fruit is good for you and eat as much as possible, just worried about the implications of this regards their sugars on someone with Diabetes?
Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Fruit is the best way for a diabetic to still keep sweet treats in their lives. It is packed with stuff to allow the body to deal with it in a manner that is completely different to refined sugar. How and how much of it you eat will depend on your own preference for carb-count and to how you interpret the various data that diabetics keep track of.

Personally, I think that the best way to eat fruit is to treat it as a meal in and of itself i.e to substitute one of your meals for it. Breakfast is a great choice imo, as it's often one of the meals where people eat less quantity, and so you wouldn't need to stuff your face with the stuff. Moreover (and especially if you choose more water-rich fruits), it's a very hydrating way to start the day.

Adding fat to the meal also seems to reduce associated spikes, albeit at the cost of lengthening the digestion time. Adding a small dollop of peanut butter and a sprinkle of seeds to chopped apples, might be one example. Or you might try making a chia pudding, infused with orange and apple bits.

http://www.fortheloveofit.org.nz/awesome-eats/fantastic-fruit
 
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Please don’t follow any advice to eat glucose and fructose for breakfast if you are type 2. The very worst time of day to be adding sugar into your body.
 
The. best way to tell how fruit affects you personally is to test .I personally can manage half a small easy peeler satsuma with my full fat yoghurt and double cream but that is it apart from a few berries
Carol
 
Yes, fruit is generally good for one. However, the metabolic system of diabetics is compromised in its ability to deal with carbohydrates (either through no insulin production or insulin resistance), so fruit may present a challenge. The best way to find out is to test the response of one's blood sugar level after consuming some specific fruit.
 
My personal experience, after 10 years of diet control only, is that fruit raises my blood sugar levels quickly and for longer than anything else.

There is also something about it which adversely affects my liver. My liver consultant recommends I have very little fruit. I have non alcoholic fatty liver. Since I stopped fruit, except for an occasional treat, my liver has improved.

Apparently type 2 diabetes and fatty liver can go hand in hand. I must remember to ask my consultant why at my next appointment.
 
Hi. Avoid tropical fruits such as bananas, nectarines etc as they are so high in sugars despite being good in other ways. Stick to apples, pears and so on. GPs love Metformin as they can be seen to be doing something for diabetes by prescribing. It often doesn't do as much as they hoped for. Typically if may reduce BS by 1 mmol. I do take it even with my insulin partly to keep my DN happy and it does have other protective effects beyond BS control. It's the law of diminishing returns when you increase the dose, so 2000mg doesn't have 4x the effect of 500mg. I wish GPs would stress having a low-carb diet as the highest priority rather than prescribing meds as the first option for treatment.
 
Just dropping in again to add this: There's a lot of discussion going on on your thread about what works and what doesn't. When opinions differ, and you don't know whom to believe, trust in your meter. It'll never steer you wrong, not try to sell you on some dogma or another.

Trust what your blood tells you. Because what works for someone else, might not work for you, and vice versa.
Jo
 
I find I can eat an apple if its with peanut butter and I can eat the odd strawberry if it is with cream. For me it is moderation and a treat. I could not eat the apple or strawberries on there own it would have to be after a meal as my sugar would spike for about 3 days after.
 
Hi all,

A lot of posts have been deleted because of bickering over a vaguely related subject.
Please remember to take it to PM if you don't agree with another member if it's not on topic, especially in threads by someone newly diagnosed.
It would be nice if you all took the time to ask yourself if your reply is helpful and relevant to the one who started a thread before posting.
 
I have no experience with metformin (or other drugs) so won't try to answer the first question. Many people have achieved huge reductions in BG by diet alone.

Fruit: the only way you can find out what fruit does to your blood glucose is to use your meter. As T2s, by definition we can't handle carbs well, which includes fructose and sucrose. Some people can have more fruit than others, some people can't manage even the berries. While I can tell you what happens for me, I can't predict (I don't think anyone can) what happens for you. I can't eat fruit other than a few blueberries, strawberries, raspberries or blackberries every so often without my BGs rising too much. Still get a rise on the berries, but within my set limits.

Unfortunately almost all the "healthy eating " advice the health service pumps out is no good for T2s, and may be positively dangerous. The garbled stuff you see in the media is even worse.

This might help:
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog/kennya.517579/

Best of luck.
 
For all those saying be guided by your meter for fruit are we ignoring the fact that fructose (a significant proportion of the sugar in fruit) isn’t measured by the meter, only glucose? And it’s the fructose that contributes in the background to fatty livers which raises insulin resistance. So by thinking the glucose element is reasonable we ignore the underlying problems fruit causes.

whilst fruit has some great nutritional benefits as far as I’m aware they can all be obtained from veg without the fructose hit and with a reliable measurement of effect using our meters.
 
Note that artichoke, asparagus, broccoli, leeks, mushrooms, okra, onions, peas, red pepper, shallots and tomato products all contain fructose, although I don't know how much.
 
It's true that everyone is different, and that you should test your blood after eating to see where your levels are at. That said, I would be extremely surprised if fruit doesn't raise your levels. Almost all the popular fruits are objectively high in sugar, and T2 diabetics should basically aim to minimize the amount of sugar they take in. Some of us can *tolerate* fruit. I'd keep it as a treat, not a mainstay.
 
This gives a fairly accurate picture of the relative carbs in various fruits. Note that although most berries fall towards the lower end of the graph, blueberries are quite high.
 
I used to love tropical fruit and dried fruit, but testing before and after meals shows they are not for me. I still eat raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, gooseberries and rhubarb but in smaller quantities than I used to. I mainly have raspberries with Greek yogurt, or make a rhubarb fake crumble with ground almonds.
 
TriciaWs said:
or make a rhubarb fake crumble with ground almonds.
Click to expand...
I made a fake apple crumble the other week using courgette instead of apple, lots of cinnamon and almonds, nuts seeds etc as the topping, served with double cream. It wasn’t quite the same taste wise as apple but pretty good texture wise. Everyone in the family quite liked it, most knew it was a little different but weren’t sure why and no one guessed or quite believed it was courgette.
 
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