6 Months Into Peating, I Get Diabetes

[sladerunner69]

Funny how so few are rushing to address this one.

Maybe because it was posted at 12:30 in the morning? You posted your comment at 4:00 in the morning giving only 3 and a half hours for a reply, in the middle of the night!

It's hard to address an issue like this over an internet forum. We can give advice but really we don't know your history, what you eat, your lifestyle, your overall health situation, etc.

If you're having these kinds of blood sugar issues, I would consider eating under 40g of fat a day. High fat high sugar is probably not going to help in your case, even if it's saturated. A low carb diet can potentially lower blood sugar, but really it's not addressing the problem of dysfunctional mitochondrial respiration. Eating a high fat diet consistently and then suddenly eating a high sugar meal will probably cause blood sugar issues with a lot of people. Eating a high fat low carb diet essentially makes you "diabetic", because you will have increased blood FFA.

This study talks about skipping breakfast and high blood sugar after a meal. Here is a quote from the artical...

Acute elevation of plasma FFA also induces hepatic insulin resistance and increased hepatic glucose production in patients with type 2 diabetes and in control subjects without diabetes.

High cortisol can also cause high blood sugar and Ray has mentioned that diagnosing insulin dependent diabetes without measuring sugar in the urine and the cortisol levels is irresponsible.

In your case it might be a good idea to take it slow while (the addition of sugar) while also controlling other aspects of your diet like PUFA and possibly starches. If you are going to go "all out" then you need to make sure that everything you do is right on point. Low fat, high fruit, good calcium:phosphorus ratio, don't skip breakfast, frequent meals, under 4g PUFA, tracking your diet on cronometer, using aspirin and vitamin K consistently and in reasonable doses, possibly using niacin, getting all your micro nutrients everyday, getting enough but not too much protein, reducing general stress in your life, checking pulse and temps, maybe taking thyroid, ADEK, progesterone, etc.

Since we can't be around when you're doing this, we just have to take your word that you are being diligent. Saying the above doesn't work is easy, but none of us are there to monitor you.

With all that being said, I sincerely hope you get to a point where you feel good. Ultimately feeling good is the goal, right?

Ignorance is no excuse for incomptetence. This woman needs help and her diabeetuz is getting worse each and every chocolate-croissant she swears by.

Whats your problem with too much protein? As long as its from a low-tryptophan source, only good can come from protein.

 

[burtlancast]

This study talks about skipping breakfast and high blood sugar after a meal. Here is a quote from the artical...

Acute elevation of plasma FFA also induces hepatic insulin resistance and increased hepatic glucose production in patients with type 2 diabetes and in control subjects without diabetes.

Thanks.
Would you mind attach the article here ?
I can't seem to find it on the net.

 

[Tarmander]

What a bummer!

I am sorry to hear about your troubles Artemis. Just wanted to put in a few things here. Contrary to what Westside says, you definitely can have 500+ blood sugars for awhile. I am a type 1 diabetic and was diagnosed around that blood sugar. I had probably been there for at least a month. Also, some of my type 1 betic friends were diagnosed at even higher levels...600...700...it is definitely possible.

From your story, it seems like your body is well adapted to use fat as a fuel cycle. Not eating Carbs or sugars for long periods of time is just going to do that as many in this thread have surmised. Welcome to Paleo recovery.

As far as going forward, and what you should do. I would definitely make getting off the metformin my first priority. It can work in the short term, but most long term users I have read about find that it losses its potency. That is just my own anecdotal finding.

Other then high blood sugar which now seems to be getting under control...are you dealing with anything else? High stress? sleep issues? is life just hunkey dorry?

 

[artemis]

Ignorance is no excuse for incomptetence. This woman needs help and her diabeetuz is getting worse each and every chocolate-croissant she swears by.

Umm, huh? As I said, I have been eating protein only. No carbs or sugar. That means no chocolate and no croissants.

 

[schultz]

This study talks about skipping breakfast and high blood sugar after a meal. Here is a quote from the artical...

Acute elevation of plasma FFA also induces hepatic insulin resistance and increased hepatic glucose production in patients with type 2 diabetes and in control subjects without diabetes.

Thanks.
Would you mind attach the article here ?
I can't seem to find it on the net.

Oh you're welcome!

Here...

 

[XPlus]

It's great that you're taking responsibility for your own health and that you have faith in alternative therapy.

The idea that only overweight people get sugar issues or obesity causes diabetes is idiotic at best.
I suggest you ignore these.
Diabetes is a problem of chronic elevation of stress hormones in response to feeding or low blood sugar.
Or, as others put it here, your system is used to metabolising either fats or protein.
Shifting metabolic reliance on sugar as a fuel might be a little difficult, depending on your age and state of health.

While stress hormones are the main issue, it could be partially the result of damage to beta cells, in which case insulin production might not be sufficient to process the sugar you eat, as tara suggested.
There have been some talks before on the possibility of alpha cells converting into beta cells, in the right environment, thus reversing this portion on the problem.

It would be difficult to tell what's exactly is contributing to your problems with sugar and in what proportion.
If you're familiar with Peat's writings on sugar issues, it's possible that you've introduced the carbs into your diet a little too quickly.
I'm battling slight sugar issues myself, so I have few thoughts on my mind.
Do not take these as straight diet recommendations.
Rather, they're ideas to think about.

Is there any other health problems you're currently having that may be contributing to your diabetes. Hypothyroidism, bad digestion, impaired liver function all could make it harder to shift metabolism mostly towards glucose. It would probably be more reasonable to shift focus to there, at the moment.

If nothing else is of much concern, I'd give myself sometime to develop proper sensitivity to sugar, build amounts slowly along with increased metabolism.
Starch and pure glucose require insulin to process.
Thus, aren't ideal food choices when insulin production is a problem.
Fructose is less likely to trigger insulin and is thought of to be safer than taking straight sucrose or starch. So it's maybe a better choice to experiment with after directly coming from a low-carb experiment.
Orange juice contains potassium, which helps in processing the sugar safely.
Niacinamide helps minimising the stress hormones by limiting the release of stored fats (FFAs).
I'd always try combining starch with fat at meals to slow down the absorption. Some fructose along with this meal will mitigate insulin requirements
I'd combine protien and carbs in a meal to maintain a nice balance of blood sugar.
There's probably a lot of processing pressure on the system when having a large meal. So I usually have as many smaller meals as possible during the day. This will also help minimalise potential blood sugar crashes.
When I feel my blood sugar is uncomfortably high, I'd do some physical activity and that quickly keeps it in check.
Bad digestion is one significant factor I believe, as bacterial toxins play a role in diverting the body's metabolism away from sugar as well as contributing to general degeneration of physiological function.

Dr. Peat mentioned things like Brewers yeast, aspirin and gelatin for sugar issues. I'd have a look at those if I haven't already.

 

[artemis]

You only listed one of the things you tried, so not sure if you have already tried the following...

Thanks, mt_dreams. I do supplement magnesium, in a few forms. I take a few magnesium malate tablets per day, I use a magnesium oil spray a couple times a day, and I take epsom salt baths when I can, maybe every other day. I do supplement bicarb, too, but haven't tried them together. I will look into making that.

I tried several things to lower my blood glucose, based on different studies and things I've read. I tried mega-dosing aspirin (7 grams a day) for about a week and a half. I tried mega-dosing B-vitamins, all of them. Tried taking milk thistle. Tried eating lots of brewer's yeast. I'm probably forgetting a couple of things I tried. During this period, I never saw the numbers budge much, stayed in the 250 to 380 range. It was only when I drastically changed my diet that I saw a real change. I also, this past week, have been taking a lot of cinnamon, a lot of bicarb, and apple cider vinegar with each meal. So maybe these have helped, too. I still take my B-vitamins, just in regular doses, and aspirin occasionally.

Yes, I do want to get off of the Metformin. I only have this one bottle (30-day supply) that they gave me the script for at the hospital. There's no refills on it. Of course they told me to find a doctor to get my refills. I think I'm going to take the rest of this bottle then just stop. It did make me feel much better at first, but it really didn't lower my numbers much, if at all.

I am a type 1 diabetic

Hi, Tarmander. How do you control your diabetes? Do you take insulin?

Other then high blood sugar which now seems to be getting under control...are you dealing with anything else? High stress? sleep issues? is life just hunkey dorry?

I'm not under any high stress right now. Sleep is good. Life is good. I was under a bit of work-related stress back a few months ago when my symptoms started -- burning the candle at both ends, not getting enough sleep. I believe this probably contributed to my sudden blood sugar issues.

 

[Tarmander]

I'm not under any high stress right now. Sleep is good. Life is good. I was under a bit of work-related stress back a few months ago when my symptoms started -- burning the candle at both ends, not getting enough sleep. I believe this probably contributed to my sudden blood sugar issues.

I think most people who go low carb and come over to Peat do so because they are having issues with metabolism, sleep, being cold...basically anything under the huge umbrella that is hypothyroid.

If life is great, and you are sleeping well, then you can really take your time making the transition back to eating more carbs, if that is what you want to do. It sounds like what others have said, maybe just a bit too much too soon.

Yes I take insulin I have been since I was 12 years old.

 

[tara]

Hi Artemis,

I'm not an expert on this, and have no direct experience of recovery from severe hyperglycemia, so bear that in mind if you read my comments.

Since this is such a major serious issue, then I think it may well make sense to spell out as many possible factors as you can to help give a picture of what's going on. Including details about diet before, during and after the severe glycemia period, supplements, and other lifestyle factors. I don't think you can know that anything is irrelevant. I can imagine ways that thyroid might affect things under some circumstances, for instance. You say you are only eating protein, but I can't tell if that means meat including fat, or pure protein powders, or what - since I guess it's not skim milk and gelatin from your other comments. Micronutrients are likely to be critical as well.

Understand your reaction to some of westside's comments, and I believe you about about being in the 10% not overweight (10% does not count as extremely rare in my books), and that you did have really high blood glucose levels (I know people who have been diagnosed at high levels too) and I think it is possible you accurately identified an issue for you with the gelatin. However, I think he makes some very good points about the value of avoiding fat to restore glucose metabolism. It is possible that the method he describes would be the most effective way to restore blood glucose metabolism, if it can be done in your case. Did you read thebigpeatowski's thread recently? She successfully tackled hyperglycemia by radically avoiding fats and living off carbs and low-fat protein for months too, including a lot of fructose. She describes it as a very rough process, but ultimately very successful. There is no guarantee that such methods wll be successful for you, but I suspect they may give you the best chance. You might want to read EnoreeG's description of how he manages his diabetes, too. And Tarmander's log, if you haven't ryet read that. I'm not recommending following someone else's methods exactly unless they make sense to you (none of them have exactly the same situation as you), but there may be things to learn from these stories.

I agree that you have to go by what works for you. Dramatically lowering sugar and starch intake briefly to get the numbers down might well be helpful (even life-saving) in the short term, but I agree with those who say that it has its limitations as a long term strategy. That is not a cure, just a short-term emergency measure, and is likely to make the problem worse in the long run if you continue it indefinitely. A very high protein diet has a number potentialy serious problems of their own. I think excessive levels of the inevitable breakdown products of running on protein can eventually be overwhelming. I disagree with the poster above who said good quality protein can't cause problems. You know that a diet high in protein and low in carbs will in the best case result in most o the protein being converted to sugar for fuel, so it is still a strategy that depends on the body being able to burn sugar. If I've understood this right (someone please let me know if I've got this wrong), to do that, you have to be running on continuously hgh cortisol levels. Chronically high cortisol levels are one of the candidates for causing damage to the pancreas, and therefore can worsen sugar metabolism.

Running on fat inevitably reduces blood glucose burning too. While the posters above maybe right that under some conditions this is temporary and consistent with sustainable health, your very high blood sugar numbers seem to me to indicate that this is not the case for you. You can search for the Randle Cycle if you are unfamiliar with it.

I would like you to have a target of recovery that includes restoring sugar metabolism, not just lowering blood glucose levels. You can lower blood glucose levels by methods that will eventually result in starvation. Lean as you are, this may be a bigger risk for you than any 'excess fat' westside may be concerned about. Diabetes used to kill people by wasting. It may be that there is so much damage that it cannot be undone, but I don't think you know that yet, and it might be a shame to use strategies that are very likely to permanently worsen the problem before finding out if you can cure it.

It's a tough spot to be in, and I don't think you deserve to have people judge you harshly over it. Like all of us, you've been doing your best to take care of yourself over the years on the basis of confusing information.

Take care, be gentle with yourself,

 

[tara]

HI Artemis,
I wrote the previous post before reading our latest update.
I'm wondering, with all the supplements you tried, eg brewers yeast, B-vits, did you do any of it while eating really low fat, and moderate (50-100g) not high protein?
Without the milk, are you getting regular calcium?
I'm glad you are monitoring your own blood glucose levels.
Don't suppose you've checked your UpH a few times? (This is more RBTI than Peat - I chucked a couple of thoughts from RBTI and diabetes into that thread.)

Emergency blood sugar lowering techniques that work for some people include strenuous exercise of large muscles and reduced breathing exercises.

 

[artemis]

Is there any other health problems you're currently having that may be contributing to your diabetes. Hypothyroidism, bad digestion, impaired liver function all could make it harder to shift metabolism mostly towards glucose.

Hi, XPlus, thanks for your thoughts on this. I have always been hypothyroid. I'm now taking a little cynoplus morning and night (1/4 to 1/2). Like many here, I got off to a rocky start with it back in January when I first started experimenting with it. Mainly high resting pulse rate during the day, even from the smallest crumb of cynoplus. I have never been able to get my hands on any "real" T3, so I've only experimented with the cynoplus. I stopped taking it completely in February due to my high resting pulse rate...yet the high heart rate continued. I only recently started taking it again (about a month ago?), out of desperation to get my blood glucose down. I seem to be doing OK with it this time -- afternoon heart rate staying in the 80's as opposed to the 120's to 130's like before. Temperature stays low, though (96's and 97's), both before and now. So I'm thinking about increasing my dose a little.

As far as digestion, it seems to be fine. No issues that I'm aware of. Same with liver function. No other health problems.

 

[schultz]

Whats your problem with too much protein? As long as its from a low-tryptophan source, only good can come from protein.

Very high protein releases too much insulin which lowers blood sugar, not to mention other things which Ray mentions in this clip below. Other amino acids can cause problems and not just tryptophan. Methionine for example, possibly cysteine, histidine...

Eating a high fat diet consistently and then suddenly eating a high sugar meal will probably cause blood sugar issues with a lot of people. Eating a high fat low carb diet essentially makes you "diabetic", because you will have increased blood FFA.

If you eat fat, obviously you'll get more FFA. Your cells are just using what you eat, so that's expected. But you are implying that pathological FFA (caused by PUFA for example) is the same as FFA when the body uses saturated fats for energy. It's completely different, these are two very different types of insulin resistance. One is permanent, the other is physiological and comes and goes a few times per day so as to maintain stable blood glucose. Peter from Hyperlipid has written dozens of articles on what he calls physiological insulin resistance and he makes a clear distinction between the two cases. The fact that in disease people have elevated PUFA type FFA due to broken carb and fat metabolism is almost irrelevant to the second case and translates into a different blood sugar & FFA composition. Night and day for blood sugar and health, really.

I think confusing stress and diabetes with saturated FFA, and keeping carbs so high when the author just went to the emergency room, is playing with fire. I can see the rational for doing so, coupled with reduced PUFA and nutritious diet to get the co-factors hoping that glucose metabolism will resume, but I personally wouldn't go down that route (anymore) even though I have no diabetic problems. There are other ways to achieve a stable blood sugar level with normal usage of both glucose and saturated fat.

I don't think high blood sugar in and of itself is harmful. Is the sugar causing damage? If anything the sugar in the blood is protective.

I think high FFA from any type of fat is putting someone in the wrong direction. High sugar leads to high carbon dioxide and high oxidative metabolism.

"Just about everything that goes wrong involves FFA increase. If they are totally saturated fatty acids, such as from coconut oil and butter, those are less harmful, but they still tend to shift the mitochondrial cellular metabolism away from using glucose and fructose and turning on various stress related things; By lowering the carbon dioxide production I think is the main mechanism." - Ray Peat (from Q+A with East/West podcast)

Here are some quotes from Ray's articles that pertain to blood sugar and diabetes.

"Sugar and thyroid hormone (T3, triiodothyronine) correct many parts of the problem. The conversion of T4 into the active T3 requires glucose, and in diabetes, cells are deprived of glucose. Logically, all diabetics would be functionally hypothyroid. Providing T3 and sugar tends to shift energy metabolism away from the oxidation of fats, back to the oxidation of sugar."

"One of the things progesterone does is to stabilize blood sugar. In one experiment, hot flashes were found to be increased by lowering blood sugar, and decreased by moderately increasing blood sugar "

"Gelatin and glycine have recently been reported to facilitate the action of insulin in lowering blood sugar and alleviating diabetes. Gelatin has been used successfully to treat diabetes for over 100 years."

"But in the organism, the hyperglycemia is compensating for a sensed deficiency of glucose, a need for more energy... If diabetes means that cells can't absorb or metabolize glucose, then any cellular function that requires glucose will be impaired, despite the presence of glucose in the blood. It is the intracellular absence of glucose which is problematic, rather than its extracellular excess. "

"The antagonism between fat and sugar that Randle described can involve the suppression of sugar oxidation when the concentration of fats in the bloodstream is increased by eating fatty food, or by releasing fats from the tissues by lipolysis, but it can also involve the suppression of fat oxidation by inhibiting the release of fatty acids from the tissues, when a sufficient amount of sugar is eaten."

"In every type of tissue, it is the failure to oxidize glucose that produces oxidative stress and cellular damage. Even feeding enough sucrose to cause fat deposition in the liver can protect the liver from oxidative stress"

"For a given amount of energy released, the oxidation of glucose produces more carbon dioxide and uses less oxygen than the oxidation of fatty acids."

"The supplements that most often help to correct diabetes-like conditions are niacinamide, thiamine, thyroid, and progesterone or pregnenolone. Vitamins D and K are clearly protective against developing diabetes, and their effects on many regulatory processes suggest that they would also help to correct existing hyperglycemia."

"Drinking coffee seems to be very protective against developing diabetes. Its niacin and magnesium are clearly important, but it is also a rich source of antioxidants, and it helps to maintain normal thyroid and progesterone production."

"Aspirin has a very broad spectrum of antiinflammatory actions, and is increasingly being recommended for preventing complications of diabetes. One of the consequences of inflammation is hyperglycemia, and aspirin helps to correct that (Yuan, et al., 2001), while protecting proteins against oxidative damage"

 

[Suikerbuik]

I don't think high blood sugar in and of itself is harmful. Is the sugar causing damage?

I think it does, however, when insulin resistant there is little point of forcing glucose down with additional insulin, as this is likely to put homeostasis far more off balance with more detrimental effects.

 

[Westside PUFAs]

I don't need you to tell me to be honest. I am an honest person. I don't lie, or even embellish. It would be pretty silly for someone to come on this forum, seeking help, and lie about things, don't you think?

I'm not saying you're lying. I'm just making an observation. People do it all of the time. There was one guy who came on here, "Jake Thomas," who's only purpose was to argue against "white sugar" and "carbs." Some people enjoy debating nutrition especially when it comes to "sugar and carbs."

I am not overweight. If anything, I am a little underweight. I'm 5'8", 132 pounds. I have big bones (really!), big hands and feet, so I appear kind of bony.

Well then I'm speechless. I've never seen any clinical data on people who have a normal BMI and also have type 2 diabetes. You're a rare breed indeed.

You must have been checking your blood sugar right after eating or your glucometer is broken because it doesn't make sense.

From July 5th:

I bought a blood glucose monitor but couldn't get the damn thing to work. And, I really don't want to prick my finger or do any of that! Threw it against the wall.

Hum sorry, but the symptoms you described are quite severe and yet you don't do a very simple finger prick with a $10 grocery store thingy? Which would allow you to test something so important as blood glucose problems?

Yeah, I know, you're right, jyb, I was just so frustrated at the time. The monitor was $25 and the strips were $15 -- that was the cheapest I could find. It was not simple at all. Had to poke my finger twice to get enough blood (it hurt!), then when the strips wouldn't insert into the monitor (tried 3 different ones), I had a moment.

I'm gonna go get another brand today and try again.

July 5th minus 6 weeks is the last week of May, when you said you started to get symptoms.

June 2nd:

How much Peating are you doing?

I'm pretty much full-on Peaty, have been for 7 months now. I never drank milk before in my life, except I guess as an infant. Started drinking it when I started Peating 7 months ago, found that I really liked the taste, so I've been drinking it all this time, yet only been having the leg cramps for the past 2-3 weeks. So I don't think it's the milk. My diet is pretty strict Peat -- eggs, milk, fruit, OJ, gelatin, no gluten, no/minimal PUFA, etc. And I take a lot of supplements, too. I've been cruising along, doing well, had some health issues resolve, then this crazy leg cramping started, and I just don't know what to think or do. I take some minerals before bed, do some bag breathing, stretch my legs, and still have them.

The full quote from July 5th:

I'm pretty sure I've developed diabetes since starting this "diet." I've been in denial about it, but all the classic symptoms are there -- started about 6 weeks ago. The first symptom was tachycardia -- actually this started a couple months before any of the other symptoms. Maybe this was a "pre-diabetic" stage?

Then came an insatiable thirst which gets much worse at night time, and severe leg and foot cramps EVERY night/early morning. I haven't slept through the night for 6 weeks. I get up every hour or so in the first half of the night to pee, then I am awoken every hour or so in the second half of the night/early morning hours with the leg cramps.

I have had unintentional weight loss of about 12 pounds over this past 6 weeks, despite eating more and more. My tongue was covered in sore red spots at first, though this has thankfully gone away. I've had miscellaneous other infections come and go: a weird sinus infection that caused my nose between my eyes to swell up and be really tender to touch, to the point of not being able to wear glasses (gone now), an infection on my finger where a hangnail would be, though there was never any hangnail or anything unusual there. Angular chelitis (cracks in the corners of my mouth), probably other misc. things.

I feel like I'm down in the rabbit hole! Never had any of this before. I thought at first it must be anemia, so I started taking large doses of B12 and some other B vitamins. I don't know how long these things take to start seeing an effect, but I've noticed no changes yet, after about a month.

I bought a blood glucose monitor but couldn't get the damn thing to work. And, I really don't want to prick my finger or do any of that! Threw it against the wall. So for now I'm doing the same thing as you, cantstoppeating, I've been reading all those same threads and gonna try to manage it with those supplements and diet. Never have taken biotin, I have it on order. I refuse to identify as someone with diabetes! I'm sure this is a temporary thing that I will overcome.

I've read that diabetes can be triggered by things such as trauma, shock, overwork -- physiological things that
can throw the body out of balance. I think there's really something to this, as my leg cramps started when I was working way too hard on a job where I was standing on a high ladder all day. I thought the cramps would go away when the job was over, as they always have, but they didn't go away. Then I went straight from that job into another where I had a deadline, and worked pretty much around the clock for a couple of weeks, late into the night, only stopping to sleep and eat. That's when all this started. Of course my diet must have played a part, too -- I think it was a combination of factors.

So far I haven't really talked with my family about this, as they've always thought I was crazy to be following this "diet," and I'm gonna have to go through a bunch of "told you so's." I don't have a regular doctor, and I wouldn't see one about this anyway... I'm not about to start taking insulin. I've started an email to Ray. I wonder if he'll accept my case and help me out of this (for pay, of course). I'm thinking I'll ask him to tell me what bloodwork to get, etc., and go from there.

Then you said this on July 9th:

Finally got a blood glucose monitor that works. All the readings so far have been in the 400's. Geez, this is really f**king serious. No one in my family has ever had diabetes. I don't know anything about it. But apparently I have it. I'm kind of freaked out right now. When I google those numbers, it says I should go to the emergency room! I don't want to do that. Need to get blood work done. I emailed Ray today to ask for his help, at least in terms of getting and evaluating blood work. Waiting for his reply.

You didn't post anything for a whole 5 weeks until this today. So you've been having that high blood glucose in the 4-500's for over 5 weeks now?

You're also taking a lot of supplements that may be interacting. I saw that you said that you're taking methylene blue, niacinamide, high dose b-vitamins, high dose aspirin, Protest-E, Triyotex and Tiromel, and vitamin E.

 

[johns74]

I wouldn't blame not following the diet well enough.

 

[mt_dreams]

You only listed one of the things you tried, so not sure if you have already tried the following...

Thanks, mt_dreams. I do supplement magnesium, in a few forms. I take a few magnesium malate tablets per day, I use a magnesium oil spray a couple times a day, and I take epsom salt baths when I can, maybe every other day. I do supplement bicarb, too, but haven't tried them together. I will look into making that.

Just to clarify as I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing. When I suggested mag bi-carb, I was referring to magnesium mixed with carbonated water, like the wellwater recipe for cal bi-carb on the forum, not mixing with bicarb which is what some people call sodium bicarbonate. The reason for this is magnesium in liquid form has been shown to be absorbed as much as 4 times as much that is in food/supplement form. Also, the benefit of the liquid is you can take throughout the day which has shown to be absorbed better than taking high mag food/supplement once a day.

Unfortunately, since you take many epsom salt baths, this probably means this is not the major factor for the elevated glucose. I'd still give it a shot if you have the ingredients as it's cheap, & small dose throughout the day might help along with the baths.

 

[tara]

Whats your problem with too much protein? As long as its from a low-tryptophan source, only good can come from protein.

Very high protein releases too much insulin which lowers blood sugar, not to mention other things which Ray mentions in this clip below. Other amino acids can cause problems and not just tryptophan. Methionine for example, possibly cysteine, histidine...

I agree with you about excesses of some amino acids.
But the problems associated with low blood sugar don't apply when someone has very high blood glucose.

I don't think high blood sugar in and of itself is harmful. Is the sugar causing damage? If anything the sugar in the blood is protective.

I think there could well be harm done by prolonged very high blood sugars. At what point that damage justifies taking the standard medical measures to reduce it, I don't know. I wouldn't want to have blood sugars several times the normal level for many months. There may well be others mechanisms, but one I've heard described has to do with the physics of increased viscosity and hindered flow through capilaries, and the ability of the blood to supply sufficient oxygen to tissues. I don't know if that was a well-founded or accurate description, and I expect there are other effects.

I take Peat to be saying that:
-Hyperglycemia generally involves difficulty getting sugar into the cells or oxidised, and it's good to do whatever you can to remove any bottlenecks on these processes.
- When sugar is not being oxidised adequately, cells and tissues will suffer.
- Transient hyperglycemia with identifiable transient causes does not justify prescribing insulin.
- Somewhat higher than normal blood glucose may help cope when system is stresed in other ways.

I have not read him say that high blood sugar itself cannot cause damage. At least one of your quotes (about protective effect of aspirin) seems to imply that he considers hyperglycemia itself to be potentially harmful.

The quote about the Randle cycle makes it clear that while PUFAs are worst, any fat can interfere with oxidative metabolism of sugar. This seems to me to be a good reason to try a period of very low fat consumption (eg just a minimal amount of coconut oil) as part of an attempt to remove the bottle necks. Simultaneously, it would probably make sense to do whatever you can to ensure generous amounts of all the essential minerals and attendiing to all the vitamins. Looks as though glycine or gelatin may then be worth experimenting with, along with coffee, aspirin, thyroid, progesterne, etc. I'd expect to improve the odds of these working by doing it at the same time as really low fat, and experiment with how much sugar/fructose/starch you can manage without blood sugars going through thte roof too often. Being a bit above normal from time to time may be a lesser evil compared with the alternatives.

I can imagine it being hard to get suitable amounts of several minerals on a high protein low carb diet - including the ones we need lots of, like calcium, Mg, K, Na, as well as smaller ones like chromium etc. I'd expect this to be very important.

While you are researching, you might want to check out Gerson therapy - Burtlancast has posted about it, and I think he has some links to information he recommended. I'd predict something along those lines would be this would be more likely to be effective thatn high protein/low carb startegies.

 

[pboy]

I guess id need every detail of your current regime and lifestyle and then what you've done in say the past recent 5 years or so to make any guess...but I do know that many fruits and/or potentially supplements and other plant foods can have glucose inhibiting properties...then theres always that potential that you just have really low thyroid due to various reasons and/or pufa release...again id need all the details. Sorry cant help more right off the bat. The obvious first thing to look at is are you getting enough potassium, which kinda bypasses the insulin system and aids sugar usage, of course you'd need thyroid still but actually sugar and potassium are the key things that encourage thyroid to go up ( you just need enough iodine and a lil protein to build the hormone with, and then some selenium to activate it) but it looks like your diet is fine in that category. So then my next guess would be potentially things like...chlorgenic acid or various other plant/sugar inhibiting substances, and/or if you are taking high does of vitamins and minerals this can be harmful potentially...if you are constipated it severely lowers respiration so therefore speed of sugar usage and metabolism in general, but again...that's correlated with metabolism, like they parallel each other...high stress usually doesn't interfere with sugar usage per se...if anything it encourages it...its kind of a weird thing, if its righteous stress, it encourages sugar usage, if its guilt based stress or unnecessary, it de courages (made up a word) it


I guess a simple thing to ask would be...if you didn't have the little meter to check your sugar, would you even suspect that it was high or whatever? like how do you feel

 

[Westside PUFAs]

Whats your problem with too much protein? As long as its from a low-tryptophan source, only good can come from protein.

Like schultz said, besides tryptophan, there's arginine, methionine, histidine and cysteine.

Too much protein stresses the kidneys:

"given the physiological processes required for excretion of protein-related metabolic waste products to maintain homeostasis following consumption of protein at levels in excess of recommended amounts. Increased consumption of dietary protein is linearly related to the production of urea [80] and urea excretion is controlled by the kidney. These processes are of significant energetic cost to the kidney and represent the physiological "strain" associated with increased protein intake " - An excerpt

Overt protein (a piece of beef, fish, 2 eggs, a cup of beans) consumed alone lowers blood sugar. Carbohydrate (fruit, fruit juice, starchy tubers) consumed alone raises blood sugar. It's a constant balance.

I think high FFA from any type of fat is putting someone in the wrong direction. High sugar leads to high carbon dioxide and high oxidative metabolism.

"Just about everything that goes wrong involves FFA increase. If they are totally saturated fatty acids, such as from coconut oil and butter, those are less harmful, but they still tend to shift the mitochondrial cellular metabolism away from using glucose and fructose and turning on various stress related things; By lowering the carbon dioxide production I think is the main mechanism." - Ray Peat (from Q+A with East/West podcast)

"The antagonism between fat and sugar that Randle described can involve the suppression of sugar oxidation when the concentration of fats in the bloodstream is increased by eating fatty food, or by releasing fats from the tissues by lipolysis, but it can also involve the suppression of fat oxidation by inhibiting the release of fatty acids from the tissues, when a sufficient amount of sugar is eaten."

 

[artemis]

Since this is such a major serious issue, then I think it may well make sense to spell out as many possible factors as you can to help give a picture of what's going on. Including details about diet before, during and after the severe glycemia period, supplements, and other lifestyle factors. I don't think you can know that anything is irrelevant. I can imagine ways that thyroid might affect things under some circumstances, for instance. You say you are only eating protein, but I can't tell if that means meat including fat, or pure protein powders, or what - since I guess it's not skim milk and gelatin from your other comments.

Well, before I started Peating in November, I ate pretty much everything BUT sugar, milk, or fruit. Just never was much of a fruit-eater, never wanted it. Same with milk. And I was sugar-phobic. I had stopped eating gluten about a year ago. But I ate lots of PUFA's, lots of nuts, beans, salads, meats, fish (even fried in PUFA's!), sort of a paleo diet I guess. Ate stuff like muffins made with almond flour, nut butters, etc. I also used to juice a lot, green juices. Have been doing the coffee with coconut oil and butter for about a year now.

After discovering Peat, I stopped all PUFA's of course. I tried milk, and I actually liked it, so I started drinking it. Never got up to the amounts some here drink, I'd have maybe 2 or 3 cups a day. Sometimes whole milk, sometimes 2%. Also started using sugar in my coffee, instead of the xylitol I had been using. Started buying more fruit and actually eating it, instead of letting it go bad. I don't have access to most of the tropical fruit Ray recommends, I mostly ate regular fruit like apples, bananas, oranges, kiwis, watermelon, pineapples, cherries, grapes (all organic). Cut out the salads (never really liked them anyway), and started eating more potatoes, squash, cucumbers, and of course the daily carrot. Have been eating lots of protein: lots of eggs from my chickens, cheese, cottage cheese, liver, oysters, shrimp, crabs, fish (I live in south Louisiana and my husband is a fisherman, so we eat a lot of seafood from the gulf), grass-fed beef, and a chicken or pork meal once in awhile, not often. I have always eaten ice cream every night before bed, for years and years, so I still did this, but just switched to Haagen-Dazs. Juiced my own oranges a few times, but the cost of organic oranges, plus the time to juice them, and the small amount of juice I got...well, I got lazy with that and started buying the commercial stuff. Would occasionally have a RedBull or a Coke. This was probably getting to be too many sugary drinks. When I would go to work I would bring a RedBull, and an OJ, and sometimes milk. I mean, all these drinks have a lot of sugar! Then I'd have maybe some chocolate for a snack...I don't know. Anyway, so that's about it for recent Peat-y diet.

Over this past week, I've eaten just meat (lots of ground beef because I can get grass-fed for a reasonable price), like hamburger without bun, or taco salads without shell, just lots of meat, cheese, onions, sour cream, etc. Had liver once this week. And all kinds of cheese, and cottage cheese, eggs, stuff like pork skins or olives or pepperoni for snacks. Had some really yummy spaghetti squash with butter. And raw oysters, boiled shrimp, fish fried in coconut oil. And I still have my "bulletproof" coffee every morning, with half n half, coconut oil and butter, only now I'm using stevia as a sweetener. I've cut out the milk for fear that maybe it was the A1 thing that triggered the diabetes?

I know this is not an optimal way of eating. I am very aware that it is not addressing the issue of why my blood glucose rose so high to begin with. And I know it's not optimal from a cellular respiration standpoint, either. I just had to take drastic measures to get my numbers down, and this did it. I'm taking it one day at a time.

As far as supplements and other lifestyle factors, that's another book, and I have to go to bed, so I'll save that for tomorrow!