Starch Vs. Sugar With Regard To Hypoglycemia

stargazer1111

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I have had reactive hypoglycemia for years. This is not the pseudo hypoglycemia where you feel bad but have normal blood sugar. My blood sugar will crash down into the 40s between meals if I eat incorrectly.

It appears that there are two concurrent issues. First, I have some sort of immune reaction to gluten and corn. If I consume gluten or corn, my blood sugar will actually crash down into the 40s within 30-60 minutes along with other symptoms that might indicate I have celiac disease (severe depression, severe gastrointestinal pain). If I consume the same amount of starch from white potatoes or white rice, my blood sugar is 120-150 30-60 minutes after eating.

Second, I have some degree of general insulin resistance, especially in the morning after breakfast. I was curious to know whether it was the starch or the sugar causing the hypoglycemia between meals. So, I did a test. One morning, I ate only starch with my meat and no sugar. My blood sugar crashed within 2 hours down into the 50s. The next morning, I ate only sugar with my meat (Mexican sprite). My blood sugar remained steady all the way to lunch with no problems.

At least for me, it is the starch causing insulin resistance and NOT the sugar. So, I have lowered my starch intake and increased my sugar intake. Seems to have had a beneficial impact!
 

Kartoffel

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Diabetes Care. 1982 Sep-Oct;5(5):512-7.
The effects of oral fructose, sucrose, and glucose in subjects with reactive hypoglycemia.
Crapo PA, Scarlett JA, Kolterman OG, Sanders LR, Hofeldt FD, Olefsky JM.
Abstract
We have evaluated the acute effects of orally administered 100-g loads of fructose, sucrose, or glucose given as drinks and of 100-g loads of fructose and sucrose given in cakes on the postprandial serum glucose, insulin, and cortisol responses in seven subjects with reactive hypoglycemia. We defined reactive hypoglycemia as a serum glucose nadir of 65 mg/dl or less, symptoms compatible with hypoglycemia occurring at or after the serum glucose nadir, a hypoglycemic index of greater than 1.0, and a rise in serum cortisol to greater than 20 micrograms/dl after the serum glucose nadir. The data demonstrated that (1) pure fructose given as a drink resulted in relatively flat serum glucose and insulin responses and did not cause a hypoglycemic reaction in any of the subjects, compared with the glucose drink, which caused a hypoglycemic reaction in any of the subjects; (2) ingestion of pure sucrose as a drink elicited significantly flatter serum glucose and insulin responses than did the glucose drink and was associated with some episodes of chemical hypoglycemia and symptoms, but did not result in a hypoglycemic reaction by our definition in any patient; and (3) ingestion of fructose cake led to serum glucose and insulin responses that were lower than those caused by ingestion of sucrose cake, but ingestion of neither fructose nor sucrose cake led to a hypoglycemic reaction by our definition in any patient. In conclusion, the use of fructose as a sweetening agent given either alone, in a drink, or with other nutrients in a cake resulted in markedly flatter serum glucose and insulin responses in subjects with reactive hypoglycemia. Fructose may thus prove useful as a sweetening agent in the dietary treatment of selected patients with reactive hypoglycemia
 
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stargazer1111

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Yeah. There are actually multiple studies corroborating the one you linked.

I'm convinced Peat is correct with regard to sugar at this point.
 

Kartoffel

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Yeah. There are actually multiple studies corroborating the one you linked.

I'm convinced Peat is correct with regard to sugar at this point.

He is. All the idiot scientists and nutritional "experts" claiming that starch doesn't disturb blood sugar so much while sugar sends it on a rollercoaster ride base their arguments on studies done with undercooked or raw starches.
 
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I have had reactive hypoglycemia for years. This is not the pseudo hypoglycemia where you feel bad but have normal blood sugar. My blood sugar will crash down into the 40s between meals if I eat incorrectly.

It appears that there are two concurrent issues. First, I have some sort of immune reaction to gluten and corn. If I consume gluten or corn, my blood sugar will actually crash down into the 40s within 30-60 minutes along with other symptoms that might indicate I have celiac disease (severe depression, severe gastrointestinal pain). If I consume the same amount of starch from white potatoes or white rice, my blood sugar is 120-150 30-60 minutes after eating.

Second, I have some degree of general insulin resistance, especially in the morning after breakfast. I was curious to know whether it was the starch or the sugar causing the hypoglycemia between meals. So, I did a test. One morning, I ate only starch with my meat and no sugar. My blood sugar crashed within 2 hours down into the 50s. The next morning, I ate only sugar with my meat (Mexican sprite). My blood sugar remained steady all the way to lunch with no problems.

At least for me, it is the starch causing insulin resistance and NOT the sugar. So, I have lowered my starch intake and increased my sugar intake. Seems to have had a beneficial impact!

Same boat here. Long time I was struggling with it. Went starch free in 2018. Problem solved.
 

Wagner83

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Yeah. There are actually multiple studies corroborating the one you linked.

I'm convinced Peat is correct with regard to sugar at this point.
Didn't you post about how you ended up in the ER with a life-threatening heart rate because of the 'peat diet' and sugar?
 
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stargazer1111

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Didn't you post about how you ended up in the ER with a life-threatening heart rate because of the 'peat diet' and sugar?

That turned out to be a vitamin A overdose. I overdosed on vitamin A at the same time I was doing a peat-style diet and hadn't realized it was due to the vitamin A yet. It caused a severely inflamed thyroid with hot nodules and put me into severe hyperthyroidism for several months. It also caused severe damage to the gastrointestinal tract along with memory loss. The memory loss has nearly disappeared but if I eat anything with vitamin A in it, it comes back so I have to be careful.

I took what I believe to be about 100,000 IU per day for 5 weeks. However, I used a cheap mg scale that may have been inaccurate so it could have been more. Some studies report people taking upwards of 500,000 IU per day for a while without any problems so it could be that I am just hypersensitive to it compared to other people.

I have been vitamin A-free for about 1.5 years now but am still dealing with lingering symptoms from the overdose. I calculated a rough half-life and it looks like it will take about 4 years for all of the vitamin A I took to completely leave my system.

I have been back on the sugar for about 8 months now with no negative effects that I can discern.
 

InChristAlone

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That turned out to be a vitamin A overdose. I overdosed on vitamin A at the same time I was doing a peat-style diet and hadn't realized it was due to the vitamin A yet. It caused a severely inflamed thyroid with hot nodules and put me into severe hyperthyroidism for several months. It also caused severe damage to the gastrointestinal tract along with memory loss. The memory loss has nearly disappeared but if I eat anything with vitamin A in it, it comes back so I have to be careful.

I took what I believe to be about 100,000 IU per day for 5 weeks. However, I used a cheap mg scale that may have been inaccurate so it could have been more. Some studies report people taking upwards of 500,000 IU per day for a while without any problems so it could be that I am just hypersensitive to it compared to other people.

I have been vitamin A-free for about 1.5 years now but am still dealing with lingering symptoms from the overdose. I calculated a rough half-life and it looks like it will take about 4 years for all of the vitamin A I took to completely leave my system.

I have been back on the sugar for about 8 months now with no negative effects that I can discern.
Glad you are doing better! You should post your story in this thread: Grant Genereux's Theory Of Vitamin A Toxicity
 
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stargazer1111

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I've spoken to Grant personally. I am a biochemist working on a vitamin A hypothesis. He and I don't exactly see eye to eye on a lot of things.
 

InChristAlone

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I've spoken to Grant personally. I am a biochemist working on a vitamin A hypothesis. He and I don't exactly see eye to eye on a lot of things.
Awesome, it'd be cool to talk about.
 
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stargazer1111

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I wish I could. But, I've been told to keep my mouth shut so other people don't steal my work. I agree with Genereux generally (no semi-pun intended there) but I believe in focusing in on the mechanism behind why vitamin A is so toxic whereas he does not. The reason I believe the mechanism is important is that the scientific community will never take his ideas seriously until direct evidence is shown to support them. His books present largely circumstantial and epidemiological evidence which is great for proposing hypotheses to test and looking at correlations. But, no causation can really be determined. Also, he contradicts himself in a lot of areas which is problematic. He admits that the body requires some vitamin A in one part but then claims that vitamin A isn't really a vitamin and we don't need any at all in another part (which I totally disagree with because we have direct evidence of enzymes and proteins specifically evolved to metabolize retinol).
 

InChristAlone

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I wish I could. But, I've been told to keep my mouth shut so other people don't steal my work. I agree with Genereux generally (no semi-pun intended there) but I believe in focusing in on the mechanism behind why vitamin A is so toxic whereas he does not. The reason I believe the mechanism is important is that the scientific community will never take his ideas seriously until direct evidence is shown to support them. His books present largely circumstantial and epidemiological evidence which is great for proposing hypotheses to test and looking at correlations. But, no causation can really be determined. Also, he contradicts himself in a lot of areas which is problematic. He admits that the body requires some vitamin A in one part but then claims that vitamin A isn't really a vitamin and we don't need any at all in another part (which I totally disagree with because we have direct evidence of enzymes and proteins specifically evolved to metabolize retinol).
Ok that's understandable. Yeah a lot of contention in that thread was about declaring it non essential. But I've realized that maybe my panic disorder could have been a result of a liver overloaded with A. I have been consuming less than 2,000 IU's for several weeks and noticing some benefits so I am pretty intrigued by the whole thing. Though I was very very resistant to the theory as I believed liver is a superfood. As do many Peat fans.
 
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stargazer1111

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Ok that's understandable. Yeah a lot of contention in that thread was about declaring it non essential. But I've realized that maybe my panic disorder could have been a result of a liver overloaded with A. I have been consuming less than 2,000 IU's for several weeks and noticing some benefits so I am pretty intrigued by the whole thing. Though I was very very resistant to the theory as I believed liver is a superfood. As do many Peat fans.

I can tell you that I have conferred with Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D council a while back and he, along with a group of other MDs, are petitioning the FDA to lower the RDA from 3000-5000 IU down to around 300-600 IU, maximum.

I think 300 IU is a safe number if you aren't already toxic. But, what is considered toxic for one person might not be for another so it is difficult to say for sure.

I think Grant is right in that people in western countries have been chronically overdosing on this stuff for 50 or so years. It's fortified into a lot of packaged foods, people love their dairy, I know people who order liver and onions multiple times per week, and a lot of people take multivitamins that contain large amounts of retinyl palmitate.
 

InChristAlone

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I can tell you that I have conferred with Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D council a while back and he, along with a group of other MDs, are petitioning the FDA to lower the RDA from 3000-5000 IU down to around 300-600 IU, maximum.

I think 300 IU is a safe number if you aren't already toxic. But, what is considered toxic for one person might not be for another so it is difficult to say for sure.

I think Grant is right in that people in western countries have been chronically overdosing on this stuff for 50 or so years. It's fortified into a lot of packaged foods, people love their dairy, I know people who order liver and onions multiple times per week, and a lot of people take multivitamins that contain large amounts of retinyl palmitate.
Wow, well then I'm consuming about double that right now, especially if I eat lots of dairy. So have you heard Dr. Garrett Smith is getting on this bandwagon? He has been posting a lot about it for months and has people doing the vitamin A detox. He says some butter is okay so I wonder then if my vitamin A is mostly coming from cream that is okay? Something about butter being protective. I mean it kinda makes sense, Dr. Price only had success with cod liver oil if he combined it with butter. He said it was the x-factor. Which we now know was likely vitamin K2. But not all dairy is going to have high amounts of K2.
 

InChristAlone

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Double post
 

Recoen

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I can tell you that I have conferred with Dr. Cannell of the Vitamin D council a while back and he, along with a group of other MDs, are petitioning the FDA to lower the RDA from 3000-5000 IU down to around 300-600 IU, maximum.

I think 300 IU is a safe number if you aren't already toxic. But, what is considered toxic for one person might not be for another so it is difficult to say for sure.

I think Grant is right in that people in western countries have been chronically overdosing on this stuff for 50 or so years. It's fortified into a lot of packaged foods, people love their dairy, I know people who order liver and onions multiple times per week, and a lot of people take multivitamins that contain large amounts of retinyl palmitate.
Are you still working on your research? Do you have anything published? If so, does it have to do with glucuronidation issues? And of course B12, thyroid, etc issued for the beta carotene to retinol conversion?
 
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stargazer1111

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Are you still working on your research? Do you have anything published? If so, does it have to do with glucuronidation issues? And of course B12, thyroid, etc issued for the beta carotene to retinol conversion?

No. I still read about it and have my hypothesis. But, I refuse to work with vitamin A in the lab. It absorbs very easily through your skin and I am paranoid about this happening. It sounds silly because we wear PPE, but vitamin A is like cyanide to me. I can't have it any amount. At least not for a very long time.

I'm still in biomedical science research but in an unrelated field.

I will continue to bark about it to others though in the hopes that research is done. There is a strong possibility that the Alzheimer's epidemic is really a chronic vitamin A toxicity syndrome. Can't prove it, but there is a lot of circumstantial literature in support of this, especially the fact that retinoids markedly upregulate amyloid beta/tau production and aggregation while inhibiting their clearance. Retinoids are decidedly neurotoxic and it is very possible non-familial Alzheimer's results from a chronic accumulation of small amounts of retinol daily from the diet.
 

Recoen

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No. I still read about it and have my hypothesis. But, I refuse to work with vitamin A in the lab. It absorbs very easily through your skin and I am paranoid about this happening. It sounds silly because we wear PPE, but vitamin A is like cyanide to me. I can't have it any amount. At least not for a very long time.

I'm still in biomedical science research but in an unrelated field.

I will continue to bark about it to others though in the hopes that research is done. There is a strong possibility that the Alzheimer's epidemic is really a chronic vitamin A toxicity syndrome. Can't prove it, but there is a lot of circumstantial literature in support of this, especially the fact that retinoids markedly upregulate amyloid beta/tau production and aggregation while inhibiting their clearance. Retinoids are decidedly neurotoxic and it is very possible non-familial Alzheimer's results from a chronic accumulation of small amounts of retinol daily from the diet.
Thanks for your reply! Do you mind sharing what your current research is in?

Also, because you’re no longer directly working with vit A, will you please share where you and Generaux differ? Or do you have paper/ website describing your theory?
 

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