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Why does drinking water raise my blood sugar?

T

TheGreatGateway

Active Member
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4 hours after a meal today, I realised I hadn't had anything to drink, so I grabbed myself a glass of water. Before the water, I was at normal blood sugar levels. After I drank it, my sugar rocketed up to 9mmol. I thought water reduced blood sugar, how come it increased it for me, and for a good while to boot?
 
that sounds very odd- a couple of thoughts- was it possible that your fingers had something on them or the test strips were old? did you retest? it is always worth retesting if you get an unusual result.

second was the meal something that might have a delayed spike? I think I've seen the phrase pizza effect .

third possibility- were you stressed or anxious? or ill?

just my thoughts.
 
TheGreatGateway said:
4 hours after a meal today, I realised I hadn't had anything to drink, so I grabbed myself a glass of water. Before the water, I was at normal blood sugar levels. After I drank it, my sugar rocketed up to 9mmol. I thought water reduced blood sugar, how come it increased it for me, and for a good while to boot?
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Hi,

From memory. You posses both a Nano meter & a kinetik? Where you using the same meter for both tests?
I believe you had concerns about a 0.9ish discrepancy between the two.. (Regarding another topic.)
 
TheGreatGateway said:
4 hours after a meal today, I realised I hadn't had anything to drink, so I grabbed myself a glass of water. Before the water, I was at normal blood sugar levels. After I drank it, my sugar rocketed up to 9mmol. I thought water reduced blood sugar, how come it increased it for me, and for a good while to boot?
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What was it before your water? Are you taking immediately before and then immediately after?

You could have an error in either set of readings. I’ve had a meter tell me I was < 3 and the next reading was the “actual” 6 or so. Forgetting to wash your hands or some small thing on your fingers

add in margin error on machines and I have also seen reasonably different readings at nearly same time from different fingers

not an exact science by far
 
You mention that your sugars were normal before the water, but when did you actually do the test? Perhaps the time-frame of when you tested and what you had eaten beforehand can give some clues as to the rise.
 
I think you would need to do this test several times before you could even begin to identify a trend.
You would also have to eliminate mate a lot of other variables including (but not restricted to), dehydration levels, amount of fat/protein/carb/fibre in the last meal, rate of digestion, portion size, stress levels, activity levels, carb ratios/insulin resistance levels, whether you were experiencing a liver dump, impact of any medication, caffeine...
 
Brunneria said:
I think you would need to do this test several times before you could even begin to identify a trend.
You would also have to eliminate mate a lot of other variables including (but not restricted to), dehydration levels, amount of fat/protein/carb/fibre in the last meal, rate of digestion, portion size, stress levels, activity levels, carb ratios/insulin resistance levels, whether you were experiencing a liver dump, impact of any medication, caffeine...
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And don't forget the CT scan and MRI and any interactions on a molecular and sub molecular scale also any quantum effects that may be involved.
 
VashtiB said:
that sounds very odd- a couple of thoughts- was it possible that your fingers had something on them or the test strips were old? did you retest? it is always worth retesting if you get an unusual result.

second was the meal something that might have a delayed spike? I think I've seen the phrase pizza effect .

third possibility- were you stressed or anxious? or ill?

just my thoughts.
Click to expand...

Not anxious at the time, until of course I saw the reading. I gave it a few checks for the next 30 minutes and it persisted, but I ran out of strips.

I did have a pretty plain chicken and veg dish, I'm not sure if chicken has a delayed response, even with gravy. My fingers were definitely clean though, I always have to soak my hands in hot water first, so i always have a chance to be certain.
 
Geordie_P said:
You mention that your sugars were normal before the water, but when did you actually do the test? Perhaps the time-frame of when you tested and what you had eaten beforehand can give some clues as to the rise.
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It was about 4 hours after my chicken and veg meal, and I'd just been sitting down watching a film. I paused, grabbed some tap water and, call it a hunch, checked my sugar levels 10 minutes later.
 
TheGreatGateway said:
It was about 4 hours after my chicken and veg meal, and I'd just been sitting down watching a film. I paused, grabbed some tap water and, call it a hunch, checked my sugar levels 10 minutes later.
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What veg? Some are high in carbs, some aren't. Chicken shouldn't spike you. Unless, of course, it had a coating. Then it would.
 
JoKalsbeek said:
What veg? Some are high in carbs, some aren't. Chicken shouldn't spike you. Unless, of course, it had a coating. Then it would.
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It was a plain chicken breast, the veg was mixed frozen - carrot, peas and a dash of broccoli. The gravy has thickener, but I deliberately made it thin, and chose the 20% less salt variety with less fat too.
 
TheGreatGateway said:
It was a plain chicken breast, the veg was mixed frozen - carrot, peas and a dash of broccoli. The gravy has thickener, but I deliberately made it thin, and chose the 20% less salt variety with less fat too.
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Carrots (7 grams) and peas (9 grams) , depending on how much of that you had, are fairly carby. As for the gravy, more fat's always preferable to less. It slows down the spike of the carbs you do have. So if you piled on the veg, with some gravy, that might explain why your BG's rose?
 
I agree with @JoKalsbeek - some veggies have way more carbs than you realise. This is one reason I found logging my food really helpful at the beginning. I assumed things like tomatoes and cucumber would have no carbs so I could eat them without worry but my testing showed I couldn't. some carbs effect different people disproportionately more than others.

I also agree- more fat helps slows the intake of carbs so can be helpful.

good luck.
 
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