Smoking and readings.

Guzzler said:

Many, many years ago I was given temperature charts by the gp to indicate when I might be ovulating. The advice was to take your temperature before getting out of bed, before eating, drinking or smoking as this would affect the temperature readings. I was just wondering if smoking before taking testing would affect the bg reading.

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Hi @Guzzler ..
Don't know whether smoking before testing directly affects a particular reading, but it can raise your BG levels
www.healthline.com/health/type-2-diabetes/smoking-diabetes
Hope this helps

That was an interesting read. Smoked for 20 years. Did not know smoking raised glucose levels. Quit twice. The first time for 2 years, the second time for good. After the first two weeks it got easier. After two or three years smoking had no appeal to me at all. Today I spend my cigarette money on Christmas ornaments. Need to remind my husband of that.

And the thing is vaping won't help as it's the nicotine that does it.

JohnEGreen said:

And the thing is vaping won't help as it's the nicotine that does it.

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I didn't know that.


Smoking is weird as regards BS levels.
I was smoking at least 20 a day when I decided to cut down by half, intending to stop completely eventually.
I restricted myself to a maximum of 10 a day (mostly less) and managed easily with no stress etc. However, my BS levels went up. Not by a lot, but by enough to notice. I did some reading on it and found this had happened to others.
If what @JohnEGreen says is true, it could be because I was wearing nicotine patches.

It was temporary though. My BS levels did return to normal. I still smoke those 10.

Bluetit1802 said:

I didn't know that.


Smoking is weird as regards BS levels.
I was smoking at least 20 a day when I decided to cut down by half, intending to stop completely eventually.
I restricted myself to a maximum of 10 a day (mostly less) and managed easily with no stress etc. However, my BS levels went up. Not by a lot, but by enough to notice. I did some reading on it and found this had happened to others.
If what @JohnEGreen says is true, it could be because I was wearing nicotine patches.

It was temporary though. My BS levels did return to normal. I still smoke those 10.

Click to expand...

Thinking about it, I believe John is right. Nicotine is a stimulant amongst other things. Makes sense that this would affect our bg, plus the stress of addiction cannot do any good either.

Here is a link.

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/...-in-diabetes-complications-among-smokers.html

"
Doctors have known for years that smoking increases the risk of developing complications. Studies also show that smokers with diabetes have higher levels of HbA1c than nonsmokers with diabetes. However, nobody knew the exact substance in cigarette smoke responsible for the elevation in HbA1c. Liu and colleagues suspected it may be nicotine and set out to check nicotine’s effects on HbA1c. Using human blood samples, they showed that concentrations of nicotine similar to those found in the blood of smokers did, indeed, raise levels of HbA1c.

“Nicotine caused levels of HbA1c to rise by as much as 34 percent,” said Liu, who is with California State Polytechnic University in Pomona, Calif. “No one knew this before. The higher the nicotine levels, the more HbA1c is produced.”

Doctors could use data from this study as a new basis for encouraging patients with diabetes to quit smoking, Liu said. What about nicotine patches, electronic cigarettes, and other stop-smoking products? Liu pointed out that people tend to use those products for only brief periods, and that the benefits of permanently stopping smoking may outweigh any risk from temporary elevations in HbA1c. However, the study may raise concern over the long term use of such products, he added."