I wonder if anyone can help. I have been taking Humulin 1 insulin for a few years now. I notice when I wake up that my glucose levels rise from 5.0 or 6.0 to 13, 14 0r more, and it stays that way for most of the day. The level starts to decrease around 3 p.m to 4pm. I have a healthy diet ie light breakfast of porridge or Greek yogurt and fresh fruit or Toast (seeded sourdough bread) sometimes Weetabix or Shredded Wheat. I have light lunches and no snacks between meals. Dinner is generally Fish, Chicken or egg based. I am 6 ft tall and weigh 13stone 9lbs, so not much overweight. I also have the cursed fatty liver disesase, NAFLD as I dont drink alcohol. i Cannot fathom why my levels rise so alarmingly. Glad of any help
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glucose spikes in the a.m
- Thread starter Cooksy
- Start Date
- Messages
- 4,097
- Type of diabetes
- Treatment type
- Diet only
Hi and welcome to the forums.
One of the things that happens to many of us is known as "dawn phenomenon" - that's when your liver, usually in the early morning, starts to make glucose and add it it to your system. One of the liver's jobs is to adjust available glucose to meet likely needs. Livers seem to take "normal" levels as being where your levels have been recently, so if your overall BGs have been high, the liver will take that as the "correct" level and try to maintain it.
So you might be seeing elevated levels partly because of liver activity.
The other thing that strikes me is that there's a lot of carbohydrate in your breakfast. In particular, from what you report, porridge, fruit, toast, weetabix and shredded wheat are all very carb heavy. There will also be a reasonable amount of carb in the milk you have with those, in the form of lactose, a milk sugar.
All the carb in that food is digested to glucose and will enter your bloodstream fairly quickly. I don't eat any of those foods, or anything similar, because of the impact that they would have - my blood glucose levels would climb very quickly. Unfortunately these carby foods are aften described as "healthy" when for T2 diabetics they are anything but in terms of blood glucose.
If your lunches are things like fish, chicken, and eggs (ie no more carbs) then you won't be adding any additional glucose, and your levels would in consequence start to come down - as you say they do.
So I would guess that the reasons your BG is climbing and staying high is that, firstly, your liver is doing its best to get your BGs to the levels they've been at recently, and secondly, eating a substantial amount of carb at breakfast is having the expected impact on your blood glucose levels.
Does that make sense?
One of the things that happens to many of us is known as "dawn phenomenon" - that's when your liver, usually in the early morning, starts to make glucose and add it it to your system. One of the liver's jobs is to adjust available glucose to meet likely needs. Livers seem to take "normal" levels as being where your levels have been recently, so if your overall BGs have been high, the liver will take that as the "correct" level and try to maintain it.
So you might be seeing elevated levels partly because of liver activity.
The other thing that strikes me is that there's a lot of carbohydrate in your breakfast. In particular, from what you report, porridge, fruit, toast, weetabix and shredded wheat are all very carb heavy. There will also be a reasonable amount of carb in the milk you have with those, in the form of lactose, a milk sugar.
All the carb in that food is digested to glucose and will enter your bloodstream fairly quickly. I don't eat any of those foods, or anything similar, because of the impact that they would have - my blood glucose levels would climb very quickly. Unfortunately these carby foods are aften described as "healthy" when for T2 diabetics they are anything but in terms of blood glucose.
If your lunches are things like fish, chicken, and eggs (ie no more carbs) then you won't be adding any additional glucose, and your levels would in consequence start to come down - as you say they do.
So I would guess that the reasons your BG is climbing and staying high is that, firstly, your liver is doing its best to get your BGs to the levels they've been at recently, and secondly, eating a substantial amount of carb at breakfast is having the expected impact on your blood glucose levels.
Does that make sense?
