Do blood sugar spikes matter?

yerrag

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I despair, people with thousands of postings acting as authoritative voices on basic glucose metabolism without a even basic understanding of the process.
You shouldn't because you're being corrected but instead you despair. You showed me spikes where there are none. By your definition of spikes the only good blood sugar curve is a flatline.
 
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yerrag

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Very detailed well thought out reply. Not sure why it was received by some as controversial. Blood sugar spikes that persist are among the most damaging things that can happen and cause loss of limbs , blindness, kidney failure etc...........
Short term blood sugar spikes that are then easily and quickly resolved by proper metabolism are completely normal.
If it persists, then as you stated----

"Blood sugar goes up quickly because the body tissues can't quickly absorb and metabolize sugar."

Bottom line: high blood sugar or high blood triglycerides are never ok. Sugar is fuel and belongs in cells, not in the blood above a normal range.
Thanks.

It really comes down to sugar not being absorbed and metabolized properly and quickly enough that blood sugar rises and suddenly goes down because the insulin response triggered by high blood sugar causes blood sugar to drop as the insulin signals bs to be converted to fatty acids. Too often, this drops is too much and causes blood sugar to go below healthy levels and causes low blood sugar. I could go on and on about what happens next but this could drag on and lose the trend of thought.

But the above described issue is only for people whose pancreas can produce insulin.

Those who do not produce enough insulin will not have blood sugar spikes as there is no insulin to trigger the liver to lower blood sugar by converting bs to fats.

So an absence of sugar spikes doesn't mean a person is out of the woods so to speak. As too high blood sugar isn't a good thing either.

I prefer to see a blood sugar curve where the xy curve is blood sugar vs time. Spike or no spike, it gives me an indication of how well blood sugar is regulated. And the factors that affect blood sugar regulation can be examined when the profile of the curve points to a few suspect factors.

Blood sugar should always stay within the physiological limits and should not fluctuate too much in steady state conditions. It should be like when sailing the boat isn't rocking to and fro and you have a smooth trip, not being in danger of the boat capsizing.

If say, blood sugar gets too low, it's like for a brief moment there is a blackout at home. Once in a while a blackout is fine, but when it happens too often even when the duration is short, you no doubt can imagine the consequences in blown motors that power the AC. the ref, the pump and transistors and capacitors. Well,our body is no different. It thrives on stability in the flow of energy and blood sugar being low cuts off this steadiness. And when the liver depends on rock steady energy availability to convert T4 to T3, you can bet your bottom dollar that your metabolism is going to be left hangin high and dry by the unreliability of energy coming from poor blood sugar control.
 

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