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Blood glucose levels affect lots of health functions. Diabetes represents an extreme end of the spectrum where the body's ability to regulate these fluctuations

by jjk166 22d ago

Blood glucose levels affect lots of health functions. Diabetes represents an extreme end of the spectrum where the body's ability to regulate these fluctuations fails, but just because your body can get your levels in control eventually doesn't mean you won't suffer from the negative effects of it needing to do so. Maintaining consistent glucose levels improves mental health, weight management, sleep quality, muscle recovery, systemic inflammation, cardiovascular health, and may even slow aging. There isn't much clinical data at the moment on how to use blood glucose measurements to control glucose levels outside of people with diabetes (there are lots of things that impact it besides just sugar intake), but there are definitely major theoretical benefits if it can be worked out. Also, just reducing the incidence of diabetes would be no small accomplishment. About 3.5% of global disability adjusted life-years (DALYs) are due to diabetes. As of 2021 it was the 7th largest contributor of global DALYs.

agumonkey 22d ago
sample of 1, but yeah changing my diet (very low sugar, more veggies) did alter my health visibly and rapidly. to the point that if I eat something too sweet too fast i have a very mild headache soon after, my system readjusted to not seek levels i grew up with
- maddie0 22d ago
  fwiw... if sugar gives you a headache, this may be related to a gastrointestinal issue (e.g. gluten sensitivity, dietary histamine sensitivity, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth possibly causing its own sensitivities...) The specifics of the cause in your case are between you and your doctor, but i'd like more people to know, especially since these sorts of problems disproportionately affect people with autism and ADHD, long a core Hacker News demographic, and most of us have trouble paying attention to everything our body is feeling in exquisite detail. other signs of digestive problems in this area may include: - a pattern of early-afternoon fatigue and brain fog (this is mediated by histamine, which in turn can be caused by a food allergy, a non-allergy food sensitivity, bacteria in the stomach that don't belong there, or the like) - feeling generally flushed and hot after eating food (more histamine!) - waking up in the middle of the night, ~4am, especially if you're feeling too hot (also a sign of excess histamine) - often having an upset stomach, and lots of stomach acid - increased sensitivity to heat or exercise (mast cell degranulation because your body is already on edge) - generalized hard-to-place fatigue, brain fog, depression (the whole histamine-response pathway is shot through with various neurotransmitters) - serious nasal congestion contributing to sleep apnea, and extreme fatigue now, this is going to be different from person to person, but your doctor's not going to know anything's wrong if you don't tell them! (and if something like this is the case, it's also the sort of condition that might sometimes has an instant miracle cure, because if you stop releasing the feel-bad neurotransmitters every time you eat, then you suddenly stop feeling terrible!! go figure.)
  - sirsinsalot 21d ago
    This is all true. My ADHD is hugely related to and impacted by diet. I also get headaches, brain fog, and all of the above if I eat gluten. Bodies are fun.
  - jamiek88 22d ago
    Woah. I have ADHD and most of these symptoms.
  - yuriks 22d ago
    > it's also the sort of condition that might sometimes has an instant miracle cure I assume that by this you mean figuring out some kind of dietary restriction? I also struggle with a lot of those things (also ADHD) plus other inflammation-related issues (ezcema), and noticed a very specific pattern of fatigue during the day that improves at night. It's hard to tell what might be effective or not since keeping stability in my routine is a struggle, but I've mostly came up empty on explanations/solutions so far.
  - smj-edison 22d ago
    Tbh those sound more like Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) symptoms...
    - sirsinsalot 21d ago
      Not really. I have the above and my partner has pots/mcas. They're nothing alike.
  - agumonkey 21d ago
    no actually reducing food intake and going low sugar / more veggies made most of this almost disappear
- ddorian43 22d ago
  What happens is you lose carb tolerance if you don't take them regularly. I had really high carb tolerance but doing keto for many years has plummeted it and I'm very sensitive now (can still train it). Another example doing keto for many years you also have lower alcohol tolerance.
  - agumonkey 21d ago
    [dead]
- otherme123 22d ago
  > very low sugar, more veggies Wearing a glucose monitor for a while showed me that some veggies are worse than the usual suspects: 80g of rice with fish gave me a glucose spike higher than a Nutella sandwich. Other veggies, like beans, surprisingly low.
  - kakacik 22d ago
    Rice is not a veggie ffs, its not very healthy even in its best forms. Just a lot of simpler sugars. You are not doing anything healthy by eating it, and that glucose spike is very much expected just like from other junk food.
    - otherme123 21d ago
      Rice is consumed a lot, and it has more things than "a lot of simple sugars". In fact, any "veggie" book would include many of recipes with rice, rice flour or rice noodles, as they are usually based in Asian cuisine. Also, as the current hell is gluten, some recipes suggest replacing wheat with rice. It is common knowledge in the vegan world to pair lentils with rice, as they complement (rice is low lysine, high in methionine, lentils the other way). Lentils includes fiber that lowers the glycemic index of the overall meal, but also rice eases the otherwise heavy digestion of lentils. They both pair in other micronutrients (iron, zinc, selenium, magnesium, potassium).
      - annzabelle 21d ago
        Just because something is vegetarian, doesn't make it a vegetable in standard english usage.
  - bgnn 22d ago
    Rice is not a vegetable. It's not even the whole seed of a vegetable. It's just the starchy part. Try eating wholegrain rice.
    - otherme123 21d ago
- heisenbit 22d ago
  It may be worth getting checked out for fructose malabsorption. It means the main pathway for fructose absorption is not working and your gut only has less effective (and easily disrupted, looking at you Sorbitol) transport pathways with single digit grams capacity. Anything more and you will get symptoms. It is extremely hard to avoid fructose to get down to that level without careful attention so it is significantly under-diagnosed.
loeg 22d ago
Do you think CGM + alerting is a good solution for this compared with just, like, low-dose GLP-1s?
- ijustlovemath 22d ago
  Recall that GLP-1s were originally designed as next-generation long acting insulin modulators; they're a form of passive control. The CGM gives you data to act on, or at the very least observe. I find, from my experience wearing them as a person without diabetes, they give really interesting insights into my own life by giving numbers to stressful moments, which can be good insight to have. That's called stress induced hyperglycemia. Everyone has a unique and continuously evolving glucose system, so YMMV.
ButlerianJihad 22d ago
I am confident that blood glucose has a lot to do with mood regulation as well. Having been diagnosed with bipolar since 1997, when I began mainlining insulin last year I immediately took notice of how calm and docile I became. I have anger issues and taking insulin turned me into a lamb. I also immediately began sleeping peacefully and restfully, which had been elusive for a decade. I currently take a calcium channel blocker for hypertension, and Metformin for the glucose, and I monitor with Stelo. But I would give anything for that calming effect of fast-acting insulin.

by jjk166 22d ago

agumonkey 22d ago

sample of 1, but yeah changing my diet (very low sugar, more veggies) did alter my health visibly and rapidly. to the point that if I eat something too sweet too fast i have a very mild headache soon after, my system readjusted to not seek levels i grew up with

maddie0 22d ago
fwiw... if sugar gives you a headache, this may be related to a gastrointestinal issue (e.g. gluten sensitivity, dietary histamine sensitivity, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth possibly causing its own sensitivities...) The specifics of the cause in your case are between you and your doctor, but i'd like more people to know, especially since these sorts of problems disproportionately affect people with autism and ADHD, long a core Hacker News demographic, and most of us have trouble paying attention to everything our body is feeling in exquisite detail. other signs of digestive problems in this area may include: - a pattern of early-afternoon fatigue and brain fog (this is mediated by histamine, which in turn can be caused by a food allergy, a non-allergy food sensitivity, bacteria in the stomach that don't belong there, or the like) - feeling generally flushed and hot after eating food (more histamine!) - waking up in the middle of the night, ~4am, especially if you're feeling too hot (also a sign of excess histamine) - often having an upset stomach, and lots of stomach acid - increased sensitivity to heat or exercise (mast cell degranulation because your body is already on edge) - generalized hard-to-place fatigue, brain fog, depression (the whole histamine-response pathway is shot through with various neurotransmitters) - serious nasal congestion contributing to sleep apnea, and extreme fatigue now, this is going to be different from person to person, but your doctor's not going to know anything's wrong if you don't tell them! (and if something like this is the case, it's also the sort of condition that might sometimes has an instant miracle cure, because if you stop releasing the feel-bad neurotransmitters every time you eat, then you suddenly stop feeling terrible!! go figure.)
- sirsinsalot 21d ago
  This is all true. My ADHD is hugely related to and impacted by diet. I also get headaches, brain fog, and all of the above if I eat gluten. Bodies are fun.
- jamiek88 22d ago
  Woah. I have ADHD and most of these symptoms.
- yuriks 22d ago
  > it's also the sort of condition that might sometimes has an instant miracle cure I assume that by this you mean figuring out some kind of dietary restriction? I also struggle with a lot of those things (also ADHD) plus other inflammation-related issues (ezcema), and noticed a very specific pattern of fatigue during the day that improves at night. It's hard to tell what might be effective or not since keeping stability in my routine is a struggle, but I've mostly came up empty on explanations/solutions so far.
- smj-edison 22d ago
  Tbh those sound more like Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) symptoms...
  - sirsinsalot 21d ago
    Not really. I have the above and my partner has pots/mcas. They're nothing alike.
- agumonkey 21d ago
  no actually reducing food intake and going low sugar / more veggies made most of this almost disappear
ddorian43 22d ago
What happens is you lose carb tolerance if you don't take them regularly. I had really high carb tolerance but doing keto for many years has plummeted it and I'm very sensitive now (can still train it). Another example doing keto for many years you also have lower alcohol tolerance.
- agumonkey 21d ago
  [dead]
otherme123 22d ago
> very low sugar, more veggies Wearing a glucose monitor for a while showed me that some veggies are worse than the usual suspects: 80g of rice with fish gave me a glucose spike higher than a Nutella sandwich. Other veggies, like beans, surprisingly low.
- kakacik 22d ago
  Rice is not a veggie ffs, its not very healthy even in its best forms. Just a lot of simpler sugars. You are not doing anything healthy by eating it, and that glucose spike is very much expected just like from other junk food.
  - otherme123 21d ago
    Rice is consumed a lot, and it has more things than "a lot of simple sugars". In fact, any "veggie" book would include many of recipes with rice, rice flour or rice noodles, as they are usually based in Asian cuisine. Also, as the current hell is gluten, some recipes suggest replacing wheat with rice. It is common knowledge in the vegan world to pair lentils with rice, as they complement (rice is low lysine, high in methionine, lentils the other way). Lentils includes fiber that lowers the glycemic index of the overall meal, but also rice eases the otherwise heavy digestion of lentils. They both pair in other micronutrients (iron, zinc, selenium, magnesium, potassium).
    - annzabelle 21d ago
      Just because something is vegetarian, doesn't make it a vegetable in standard english usage.
- bgnn 22d ago
  Rice is not a vegetable. It's not even the whole seed of a vegetable. It's just the starchy part. Try eating wholegrain rice.
  - otherme123 21d ago
heisenbit 22d ago
It may be worth getting checked out for fructose malabsorption. It means the main pathway for fructose absorption is not working and your gut only has less effective (and easily disrupted, looking at you Sorbitol) transport pathways with single digit grams capacity. Anything more and you will get symptoms. It is extremely hard to avoid fructose to get down to that level without careful attention so it is significantly under-diagnosed.

loeg 22d ago

Do you think CGM + alerting is a good solution for this compared with just, like, low-dose GLP-1s?

ijustlovemath 22d ago
Recall that GLP-1s were originally designed as next-generation long acting insulin modulators; they're a form of passive control. The CGM gives you data to act on, or at the very least observe. I find, from my experience wearing them as a person without diabetes, they give really interesting insights into my own life by giving numbers to stressful moments, which can be good insight to have. That's called stress induced hyperglycemia. Everyone has a unique and continuously evolving glucose system, so YMMV.

ButlerianJihad 22d ago

I am confident that blood glucose has a lot to do with mood regulation as well. Having been diagnosed with bipolar since 1997, when I began mainlining insulin last year I immediately took notice of how calm and docile I became. I have anger issues and taking insulin turned me into a lamb. I also immediately began sleeping peacefully and restfully, which had been elusive for a decade. I currently take a calcium channel blocker for hypertension, and Metformin for the glucose, and I monitor with Stelo. But I would give anything for that calming effect of fast-acting insulin.