AdamJames
Well-Known Member
I've just done my first OGTT test tonight.
What I didn't do was spend the last 3 days eating 'normal carbs', or 150g of carbs or whatever the guide is, rather I've been eating much less than that, I'm pretty certain less than 50g a day in spite of having about 30g in one sitting last night before burning it off quickly on a walk.
I didn't eat 'normal carbs' in the run-up because I'm not in a position to do so safely at the moment. Plus I'm only really interested in comparing one of my results to the next so I've noted the food I ate and my activity levels in the 48 hours leading up to this OGTT, and I'll be repeating things as closely as possible in a month.
As expected, the readings were pretty horrific but what surprised me was that when I just look at the first and last reading, I just, by a whisker, avoid the 'diabetic' classification and instead would fall in the 'impaired glucose tolerance' bracket.
But when I compare graphs online of non-diabetic OGTT results, it's clear that what was happening to my blood glucose in between the start and 2 hour point was extremely unhealthy.
My readings were:
0 min: 6.1 mmol/l
20 min: 10.6 mmol/l
40 min: 15.8 mmol/l
60 min: 17.6 mmol/l
80 min: 17.2 mmol/l
100 min: 11.1 mmol/l
120 min: 10.6 mmol/l
I used Rapilose for the test, and on the packet it suggests only measuring at zero and 120 minutes, probably because the WHO classification only specifies those times. I'm glad I measured every 20 minutes otherwise I could have presumed my metabolism was handling carbohydrates better than it really was!
I'm not sure what to make of this.
All I can think of is that I know that when I'm losing weight (I am currently) I can reliably get a healthy-looking fasting reading in the mornings even if I've eaten a very high amount of carbs (say 300g) the day before so long as the calories are low (hence don't interfere with losing weight).
So in a sense, that tells me that my body must be getting rid of the glucose from my blood fairly quickly at the moment - quick enough to at least lower things to healthy levels overnight in spite of unhealthy levels during the day due to excess carbs. I'm actually confident that in spite of this OGTT finishing quite late tonight, and now I'm about to have a late dinner, I'll have a decent fasting reading tomorrow morning.
Why, exactly, I don't know. I've presumed that the really important thing about being in a state of weight loss is that it means your liver won't have much fat in it and that helps enormously with glucose control. Perhaps this OGTT result and my observations about losing-weight-equals-good-fasting-readings point to the same underlying biological functions, but I'm not sure.
Does anyone have any insight into this?
What I didn't do was spend the last 3 days eating 'normal carbs', or 150g of carbs or whatever the guide is, rather I've been eating much less than that, I'm pretty certain less than 50g a day in spite of having about 30g in one sitting last night before burning it off quickly on a walk.
I didn't eat 'normal carbs' in the run-up because I'm not in a position to do so safely at the moment. Plus I'm only really interested in comparing one of my results to the next so I've noted the food I ate and my activity levels in the 48 hours leading up to this OGTT, and I'll be repeating things as closely as possible in a month.
As expected, the readings were pretty horrific but what surprised me was that when I just look at the first and last reading, I just, by a whisker, avoid the 'diabetic' classification and instead would fall in the 'impaired glucose tolerance' bracket.
But when I compare graphs online of non-diabetic OGTT results, it's clear that what was happening to my blood glucose in between the start and 2 hour point was extremely unhealthy.
My readings were:
0 min: 6.1 mmol/l
20 min: 10.6 mmol/l
40 min: 15.8 mmol/l
60 min: 17.6 mmol/l
80 min: 17.2 mmol/l
100 min: 11.1 mmol/l
120 min: 10.6 mmol/l
I used Rapilose for the test, and on the packet it suggests only measuring at zero and 120 minutes, probably because the WHO classification only specifies those times. I'm glad I measured every 20 minutes otherwise I could have presumed my metabolism was handling carbohydrates better than it really was!
I'm not sure what to make of this.
All I can think of is that I know that when I'm losing weight (I am currently) I can reliably get a healthy-looking fasting reading in the mornings even if I've eaten a very high amount of carbs (say 300g) the day before so long as the calories are low (hence don't interfere with losing weight).
So in a sense, that tells me that my body must be getting rid of the glucose from my blood fairly quickly at the moment - quick enough to at least lower things to healthy levels overnight in spite of unhealthy levels during the day due to excess carbs. I'm actually confident that in spite of this OGTT finishing quite late tonight, and now I'm about to have a late dinner, I'll have a decent fasting reading tomorrow morning.
Why, exactly, I don't know. I've presumed that the really important thing about being in a state of weight loss is that it means your liver won't have much fat in it and that helps enormously with glucose control. Perhaps this OGTT result and my observations about losing-weight-equals-good-fasting-readings point to the same underlying biological functions, but I'm not sure.
Does anyone have any insight into this?