Observations from using a continuous glucose monitor - Jessie Inchauspé

[David PS]

Jessie's comments:
Here’s what you need to know:
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Smoothies that spike us and aren't good for our glucose:
Contain only fruit
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Smoothies that keep our glucose steady:
Contain a source of protein (protein powder, nuts, nut butter...)
Contain a source of fat (avocado, coconut oil, nut butter...)
Have a minimal amount of fruit (and ideally berries)
unlimited amounts of veggies

 

[PeskyPeater]

Vinegar is a powerful tool for BG control. I have been purposely ignoring Jessie's posts that rely on vinegar. I will change that in the future.

You intuition is good. I had this article on my computer but I have not read it.

The effect of apple cider vinegar on lipid profiles and glycemic parameters: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

Elevated lipid profiles and impaired glucose homeostasis are risk factors for several cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), which, subsequently, represent a leading cause of early mortality, worldwide. The aim of the current study was to conduct a systematic ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

From my experience with vinegar recently, I find vinegar not a good tool to control blood sugar, if you want to control it as a goal to reduce obesity.

Instead of using the left over blood glucose, the acetic acid seems to prioritize glucose storage to the muscle and liver glycogen stores, reducing the glucose availability for others cells.

After I used 1 tbsp of vinegar at my diner, a while later I got those terrible munchies you get from smoking weed and had an uncontrollable hunger for a hour or so.

 

[David PS]

From my experience with vinegar recently, I find vinegar not a good tool to control blood sugar, if you want to control it as a goal to reduce obesity.

Instead of using the left over blood glucose, the acetic acid seems to prioritize glucose storage to the muscle and liver glycogen stores, reducing the glucose availability for others cells.

After I used 1 tbsp of vinegar at my diner, a while later I got those terrible munchies you get from smoking weed and had an uncontrollable hunger for a hour or so.

Thanks for your insights. Typically, I do not use vinegar. So I do not know about these things. Your experience and explaination are very helpful.

 

[DrJ]

Vinegar is a powerful tool for BG control. I have been purposely ignoring Jessie's posts that rely on vinegar. I will change that in the future.

You intuition is good. I had this article on my computer but I have not read it.

The effect of apple cider vinegar on lipid profiles and glycemic parameters: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials

Elevated lipid profiles and impaired glucose homeostasis are risk factors for several cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), which, subsequently, represent a leading cause of early mortality, worldwide. The aim of the current study was to conduct a systematic ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Thanks, that's an interesting meta-analysis

 

[David PS]

Important to remember appropriate dosing. Sometimes taking 1/10th the dose (or lower) is best.
Timing & Frequency. Is this something for morning - or work/school - or bedtime?
Is it better with a meal?
These are general questions we can figure out while we experiment.
Many complain about physical symptoms without doing the research.
At some point you'll either feel better or not - just like any relationship.

This is from a thread related to choline in the diet. I think that the same types of thinking also apply to using vinegar. I would like to add that unless I was eating a very fatty meal, I would not choose to use vinegar. Just my thoughts.

 

[David PS]

Jessie's comments:
Pick any sugar you like… they’re all the same!

All types of sugar spike our glucose and fructose levels, whether white sugar, brown sugar, muscovado sugar, turbinado sugar, cane sugar, coconut sugar... (the list goes on)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
While different sugars may have different colors and names, they are all made of the same thing: glucose and fructose molecules.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
They look different because they undergo different bleaching processes, or have extra molasses added to them.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
A note on coconut sugar: The Philippines, a large producer of coconut sugar, released data claiming coconut sugar was healthier than regular sugar, and this was later proven to be wrong. Coconut sugar is the same as regular sugar.

 

[David PS]

Jessie's comments:
Here’s ONE of the ways to eat your favorite cookie or cake without setting off a chain reaction of spikes and cravings for the rest of the day: eat it up to one hour before, or one hour after a using your muscles. Your working muscles will soak up the glucose as you digest it. You’ll eat your cake, but avoid the spike, so you’ll avoid cravings later on.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Of course you can go on a long hike, but more broadly I summarize this hack as: use your muscles for 10 minutes after eating.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Other ways to eat cake with a smaller spike:
Eat it as dessert instead of an an empty stomach
Put some clothes on it (protein, fat, fiber - maybe greek yogurt or some nuts)
Have some vinegar in water beforehand

 

[David PS]

Gluscose and Fatigue​

Jessie's comments:
Fatigue and glucose
When we eat something with a sweet taste, we may think that we are helping our body by giving it energy, but it is only an impression caused by dopamine in our brain that makes us feel full.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Actually, with the same amount of calories, a sweet food offers us less available energy compared to a food that is not sweet (the reason is the hidden effect of insulin after eating a sweet food).
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
With each spike in glucose we are actually damaging our mitochondria (the powerhouse of our cells). They can no longer generate power as effectively as before.
We are tired.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Diets that cause our glucose to be like a roller coaster cause us more fatigue compared to diets that flatten our glucose curves.

 

[InChristAlone]

Gluscose and Fatigue​

Jessie's comments:
Fatigue and glucose
When we eat something with a sweet taste, we may think that we are helping our body by giving it energy, but it is only an impression caused by dopamine in our brain that makes us feel full.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Actually, with the same amount of calories, a sweet food offers us less available energy compared to a food that is not sweet (the reason is the hidden effect of insulin after eating a sweet food).
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
With each spike in glucose we are actually damaging our mitochondria (the powerhouse of our cells). They can no longer generate power as effectively as before.
We are tired.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Diets that cause our glucose to be like a roller coaster cause us more fatigue compared to diets that flatten our glucose curves.

This is spreading misinformation about sugar.

 

[InChristAlone]

From Peat's article: Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.
"An excess of insulin, causing hypoglycemia, can cause blood vessels, for example in the brain and kidneys, to become leaky, and this has been claimed to be an effect of insulin itself. However, the same leakiness can be produced by an analog of glucose that can't be metabolized, so that intracellular glycopenia is produced. The harmful effect that has been ascribed to excessive insulin can be prevented by maintaining an adequate supply of glucose (Uezu and Murakami, 1993), showing that it is the lack of glucose, rather than the excess insulin, that causes the vascular malfunction. Fructose also reduces the leakiness of blood vessels (Plante, et al., 2003). Many of the complications of diabetes are caused by increased vascular leakiness (Simard, et al., 2002).

Sugar can protect the beta-cells from the free fatty acids, apparently in the same ways that it protects the cells of blood vessels, restoring metabolic energy and preventing damage to the mitochondria. Glucose suppresses superoxide formation in beta-cells (Martens, et al., 2005) and apparently in other cells including brain cells. (Isaev, et al., 2008)."

"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 (Spolarics and Meyenhofer, 2000), possibly by mechanisms such as those involved in the treatment of alcoholic liver disease with saturated fats.

The active thyroid hormone, T3, protects the heart by supporting the oxidation of glucose (Liu, et al., 1998). The amount of T3 produced by the liver depends mainly on the amount of glucose available.

Animals that have been made diabetic with relatively low doses of the poison streptozotocin can recover functional beta-cells spontaneously, and the rate of recovery is higher in pregnant animals (Hartman, et al., 1989). Pregnancy stabilizes blood sugar at a higher level, and progesterone favors the oxidation of glucose rather than fats."

"Feeding animals a normal diet with the addition of Coca-Cola, or with a similar amount of sucrose, has been found to let them increase their calorie intake by 50% without increasing their weight gain (Bukowiecki, et al., 1983). Although plain sucrose can alleviate the metabolic suppression of an average diet, the effect of sugars in the diet is much more likely to be healthful in the long run when they are associated with an abundance of minerals, as in milk and fruit, which provide potassium and calcium and other protective nutrients."

And another one: Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.
"From the beginning of an animal's life, sugars are the primary source of energy, and with maturation and aging there is a shift toward replacing sugar oxidation with fat oxidation. Old people are able to metabolize fat at the same rate as younger people, but their overall metabolic rate is lower, because they are unable to oxidize sugar at the same high rate as young people. Fat people have a similar selectively reduced ability to oxidize sugar."

"Besides being one of the forms of sugar involved in ordinary energy production, interchangeable with glucose, fructose has some special functions, that aren't as well performed by glucose. It is the main sugar involved in reproduction, in the seminal fluid and intrauterine fluid, and in the developing fetus. After these crucial stages of life are past, glucose becomes the primary molecular source of energy, except when the system is under stress. It has been suggested (Jauniaux, et al., 2005) that the predominance of fructose rather than glucose in the embryo's environment helps to maintain ATP and the oxidative state (cellular redox potential) during development in the low-oxygen environment. The placenta turns glucose from the mother's blood into fructose, and the fructose in the mother's blood can pass through into the fetus, and although glucose can move back from the fetus into the mother's blood, fructose is unable to move in that direction, so a high concentration is maintained in the fluids around the fetus."

"Besides protecting against the reductive stresses, fructose can also protect against the oxidative stress of increased hydrogen peroxide (Spasojevic, et al., 2009). Its metabolite, fructose 1,6-bisphosphate, is even more effective as an antioxidant."

"Brundin, et al. (1993) compared the effects of glucose and fructose in healthy people, and saw a greater oxygen consumption with fructose, and also an increase in the temperature of the blood, and a greater increase in carbon dioxide production.

These metabolic effects have led several groups to recommend the use of fructose for treating shock, the stress of surgery, or infection (e.g., Adolph, et al., 1995).

The commonly recommended alternative to sugar in the diet is starch, but many studies show that it produces all of the effects that are commonly ascribed to sucrose and fructose, for example hyperglycemia (Villaume, et al., 1984) and increased weight gain. The addition of fructose to glucose "can markedly reduce hyperglycemia during intraportal glucose infusion by increasing net hepatic glucose uptake even when insulin secretion is compromised" (Shiota, et al., 2005). "Fructose appears most effective in those normal individuals who have the poorest glucose tolerance" (Moore, et al., 2000)."

"When people were given a 300 calorie drink containing glucose, or fructose, or orange juice, those receiving the glucose had a large increase in oxidative and inflammatory stress (reactive oxygen species, and NF-kappaB binding), and those changes were absent in those receiving the fructose or orange juice (Ghanim, et al., 2007)."

"..."The results suggested that glucose rather than fructose exerted more deleterious effects on mineral balance and bone" (Tsanzi, et al., 2008).

An older experiment compared two groups with an otherwise well balanced diet, lacking vitamin D, containing either 68% starch or 68% sucrose. A third group got the starch diet, but with added vitamin D. The rats on the vitamin D deficient starch diet had very low levels of calcium in their blood, and the calcium content of their bones was low, exactly what is expected with the vitamin D deficiency. However, the rats on the sucrose diet, also vitamin D deficient, had normal levels of calcium in their blood. The sucrose, unlike the starch, maintained calcium homeostasis. A radioactive calcium tracer showed normal uptake by the bone, and also apparently normal bone development, although their bones were lighter than those receiving vitamin D."

"In monkeys living in the wild, when their diet is mainly fruit, their cortisol is low, and it rises when they eat a diet with less sugar (Behie, et al., 2010). Sucrose consumption lowers ACTH, the main pituitary stress hormone (Klement, et al., 2009; Ulrich-Lai, et al., 2007), and stress promotes increased sugar and fat consumption (Pecoraro, et al., 2004). If animals' adrenal glands are removed, so that they lack the adrenal steroids, they choose to consume more sucrose (Laugero, et al., 2001). Stress seems to be perceived as a need for sugar. In the absence of sucrose, satisfying this need with starch and fat is more likely to lead to obesity."

"The glucocorticoid hormones inhibit the metabolism of sugar. Sugar is essential for brain development and maintenance."

"Honey, which contains free fructose and free glucose, lowers CRP and homocysteine, as well as triglycerides, glucose, and cholesterol, while it increased insulin more than sucrose did (Al-Waili, 2004). Hypoglycemia intensifies inflammatory reactions, and insulin can reduce inflammation if sugar is available. Obesity, like diabetes, seems to involve a cellular energy deficiency, resulting from the inability to metabolize sugar."

And the most famous quote of all:

"A daily diet that includes two quarts of milk and a quart of orange juice provides enough fructose and other sugars for general resistance to stress, but larger amounts of fruit juice, honey, or other sugars can protect against increased stress, and can reverse some of the established degenerative conditions.

Refined granulated sugar is extremely pure, but it lacks all of the essential nutrients, so it should be considered as a temporary therapeutic material, or as an occasional substitute when good fruit isn't available, or when available honey is allergenic."

 

[David PS]

From Peat's article: Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.
"An excess of insulin, causing hypoglycemia, can cause blood vessels, for example in the brain and kidneys, to become leaky, and this has been claimed to be an effect of insulin itself. However, the same leakiness can be produced by an analog of glucose that can't be metabolized, so that intracellular glycopenia is produced. The harmful effect that has been ascribed to excessive insulin can be prevented by maintaining an adequate supply of glucose (Uezu and Murakami, 1993), showing that it is the lack of glucose, rather than the excess insulin, that causes the vascular malfunction. Fructose also reduces the leakiness of blood vessels (Plante, et al., 2003). Many of the complications of diabetes are caused by increased vascular leakiness (Simard, et al., 2002).

Sugar can protect the beta-cells from the free fatty acids, apparently in the same ways that it protects the cells of blood vessels, restoring metabolic energy and preventing damage to the mitochondria. Glucose suppresses superoxide formation in beta-cells (Martens, et al., 2005) and apparently in other cells including brain cells. (Isaev, et al., 2008)."

"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 (Spolarics and Meyenhofer, 2000), possibly by mechanisms such as those involved in the treatment of alcoholic liver disease with saturated fats.

The active thyroid hormone, T3, protects the heart by supporting the oxidation of glucose (Liu, et al., 1998). The amount of T3 produced by the liver depends mainly on the amount of glucose available.

Animals that have been made diabetic with relatively low doses of the poison streptozotocin can recover functional beta-cells spontaneously, and the rate of recovery is higher in pregnant animals (Hartman, et al., 1989). Pregnancy stabilizes blood sugar at a higher level, and progesterone favors the oxidation of glucose rather than fats."

"Feeding animals a normal diet with the addition of Coca-Cola, or with a similar amount of sucrose, has been found to let them increase their calorie intake by 50% without increasing their weight gain (Bukowiecki, et al., 1983). Although plain sucrose can alleviate the metabolic suppression of an average diet, the effect of sugars in the diet is much more likely to be healthful in the long run when they are associated with an abundance of minerals, as in milk and fruit, which provide potassium and calcium and other protective nutrients."

And another one: Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.
"From the beginning of an animal's life, sugars are the primary source of energy, and with maturation and aging there is a shift toward replacing sugar oxidation with fat oxidation. Old people are able to metabolize fat at the same rate as younger people, but their overall metabolic rate is lower, because they are unable to oxidize sugar at the same high rate as young people. Fat people have a similar selectively reduced ability to oxidize sugar."

"Besides being one of the forms of sugar involved in ordinary energy production, interchangeable with glucose, fructose has some special functions, that aren't as well performed by glucose. It is the main sugar involved in reproduction, in the seminal fluid and intrauterine fluid, and in the developing fetus. After these crucial stages of life are past, glucose becomes the primary molecular source of energy, except when the system is under stress. It has been suggested (Jauniaux, et al., 2005) that the predominance of fructose rather than glucose in the embryo's environment helps to maintain ATP and the oxidative state (cellular redox potential) during development in the low-oxygen environment. The placenta turns glucose from the mother's blood into fructose, and the fructose in the mother's blood can pass through into the fetus, and although glucose can move back from the fetus into the mother's blood, fructose is unable to move in that direction, so a high concentration is maintained in the fluids around the fetus."

"Besides protecting against the reductive stresses, fructose can also protect against the oxidative stress of increased hydrogen peroxide (Spasojevic, et al., 2009). Its metabolite, fructose 1,6-bisphosphate, is even more effective as an antioxidant."

"Brundin, et al. (1993) compared the effects of glucose and fructose in healthy people, and saw a greater oxygen consumption with fructose, and also an increase in the temperature of the blood, and a greater increase in carbon dioxide production.

These metabolic effects have led several groups to recommend the use of fructose for treating shock, the stress of surgery, or infection (e.g., Adolph, et al., 1995).

The commonly recommended alternative to sugar in the diet is starch, but many studies show that it produces all of the effects that are commonly ascribed to sucrose and fructose, for example hyperglycemia (Villaume, et al., 1984) and increased weight gain. The addition of fructose to glucose "can markedly reduce hyperglycemia during intraportal glucose infusion by increasing net hepatic glucose uptake even when insulin secretion is compromised" (Shiota, et al., 2005). "Fructose appears most effective in those normal individuals who have the poorest glucose tolerance" (Moore, et al., 2000)."

"When people were given a 300 calorie drink containing glucose, or fructose, or orange juice, those receiving the glucose had a large increase in oxidative and inflammatory stress (reactive oxygen species, and NF-kappaB binding), and those changes were absent in those receiving the fructose or orange juice (Ghanim, et al., 2007)."

"..."The results suggested that glucose rather than fructose exerted more deleterious effects on mineral balance and bone" (Tsanzi, et al., 2008).

An older experiment compared two groups with an otherwise well balanced diet, lacking vitamin D, containing either 68% starch or 68% sucrose. A third group got the starch diet, but with added vitamin D. The rats on the vitamin D deficient starch diet had very low levels of calcium in their blood, and the calcium content of their bones was low, exactly what is expected with the vitamin D deficiency. However, the rats on the sucrose diet, also vitamin D deficient, had normal levels of calcium in their blood. The sucrose, unlike the starch, maintained calcium homeostasis. A radioactive calcium tracer showed normal uptake by the bone, and also apparently normal bone development, although their bones were lighter than those receiving vitamin D."

"In monkeys living in the wild, when their diet is mainly fruit, their cortisol is low, and it rises when they eat a diet with less sugar (Behie, et al., 2010). Sucrose consumption lowers ACTH, the main pituitary stress hormone (Klement, et al., 2009; Ulrich-Lai, et al., 2007), and stress promotes increased sugar and fat consumption (Pecoraro, et al., 2004). If animals' adrenal glands are removed, so that they lack the adrenal steroids, they choose to consume more sucrose (Laugero, et al., 2001). Stress seems to be perceived as a need for sugar. In the absence of sucrose, satisfying this need with starch and fat is more likely to lead to obesity."

"The glucocorticoid hormones inhibit the metabolism of sugar. Sugar is essential for brain development and maintenance."

"Honey, which contains free fructose and free glucose, lowers CRP and homocysteine, as well as triglycerides, glucose, and cholesterol, while it increased insulin more than sucrose did (Al-Waili, 2004). Hypoglycemia intensifies inflammatory reactions, and insulin can reduce inflammation if sugar is available. Obesity, like diabetes, seems to involve a cellular energy deficiency, resulting from the inability to metabolize sugar."

And the most famous quote of all:

"A daily diet that includes two quarts of milk and a quart of orange juice provides enough fructose and other sugars for general resistance to stress, but larger amounts of fruit juice, honey, or other sugars can protect against increased stress, and can reverse some of the established degenerative conditions.

Refined granulated sugar is extremely pure, but it lacks all of the essential nutrients, so it should be considered as a temporary therapeutic material, or as an occasional substitute when good fruit isn't available, or when available honey is allergenic."

thanks, this is very helpful for everyone to understand.

 

[Zsazsa]

Dr Tyna just put a CGM today and gonna post updates her results (Instagram only)
ETA - she is shadowbanned on IG, to see her content one has to copy and paste the link


View: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChSNtemMQNn/

 

[David PS]

Dr Tyna just put a CGM today and gonna post updates her results (Instagram only)
ETA - she is shadowbanned on IG, to see her content one has to copy and paste the link


View: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChSNtemMQNn/

Thanks it should be interesting.

 

[lvysaur]

Diabetes question:

Are there any "classic" symptoms of a blood glucose spike which is too high? Like, can you "feel" if your spike is too high vs. normal?

 

[David PS]

Diabetes question:

Are there any "classic" symptoms of a blood glucose spike which is too high? Like, can you "feel" if your spike is too high vs. normal?

Others may be able to help you here. I feel more clear-headed after my morning walk. I assume it is the absence of symptoms of too high a spike.

 

[David PS]

Lowering a healthy blood sugar spike by changing the order of eating.

Jessie's commentss:
If we want to eat something sweet, like a cake or tropical fruit, it's better to do so after a meal than on an empty stomach.
⠀
Our stomach is like a sink. When we eat sugar on an empty stomach, it goes straight to our intestine with nothing holding it back. This leads to a big, steep glucose spike.
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
If we already have some fiber, protein and fat in our stomach, anything sweet we eat after will be slowed down. This will keep our glucose levels much steadier and avoid a spike and a drop (potentially leading to more hunger) after.

 

[InChristAlone]

I have my juice and banana on an empty stomach every day for the last 10 yrs. Still no diabetes!

 

[David PS]

Jessie's comment:
A smaller glucose spike gives us more energy, reduces cravings, helps our mood, and is overall best for our health. How do you like your yogurt?
--

 

[David PS]

 

[David PS]

JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: Change HOW you eat to balance your blood sugars

JESSIE INCHAUSPÉ: I have discovered it could be as simple as deconstructing that lunchtime tuna sandwich so you eat the salad first, then the tuna, and the bread last.

www.dailymail.co.uk