Dr. Davis,
I am so glad to see your writings here. I have worked in long term care for over 19 years as a nurse but also spent 2 years as a dietary manager. It is disheartening to see the way we are feeding our patients with high carbohydrate diets. A low carb diet is hardly ever talked about and the best you can reasonably manage is a controlled carbohydrate diet which simply means we are still giving them oatmeal or other cereals, wheat bread, which is not whole wheat etc.
and why....... because the government demands that we follow the nutrient scheme set out by the USDA. I had to make menus during my training. What a joke! I felt like a traitor with almost every mean I served because I knew I was damaging my patients with the food I was giving them.

Onions cause my blood sugar to spike. Took me a long while to accept that. Not everyone reacts the same to foods.

Oatmeal- which I don't eat but did have a half bowl last week just for a change and had very low BG numbers for a week or so, keep my sugars HIGH all day and through the night which is when my metabolism really kicks. Never again. A butterfinger doesn't do that.

I think I'm getting it. Carbohydrates are bad because they turn into glucose, and even worse because they turn to fat in the liver. Cool, now if I could just eat a fat and carbohdyrate-free diet...

“It is of interest that diets high in fibre-rich cereals and tuberous vegetables tend to result in an improvement in basal blood glucoses.”
-Denis Burkitt

You don't need to post this but I it is crazy that google dumps this:

      High Fructose Corn Syrup
      What Does Scientific Research   Really Say About HFCS?
      www.SweetSurprise.com/

on your site.  ouch I know you have no control but google should allow a little

Matt Stone,

Very misleading about Birkett. He spent a lot of time in Africa where he's responsible for curing Birkett's lymphoma. You're trying to compare orange to apple. That doesn't work. In Africa, people probably got a lot of sun which kept their vitamin D level at optimal level. We have a major problem with deficiency in USA. What else... I find it hard to believe that people in Africa consumed high amount of UNREFINED carbohydrates. They probably even fermented grains which modern processing doesn't. I've read that people there drink cow's blood although I'm not sure which part of Africa does this. They spent a lot of time outside staying active.

I've seen your works. You tend to stick to old information and not latest studies. There's a clinical study where they compared Paleolithic diet to American Heart Association's high carb, low fat diet. Paleo diet did MUCH better when it comes to improving lipid numbers and essentially curing diabetes (if they haven't progressed too far).

Just being picky, but insulin is more the hormone of fat non-burning than fat storage.

Can someone help me understand  please?
I took Dr. Davis's advic and bought a meter (TrueTrack).
my base, fasting, level from my last lab was 101, LDL 161.
I made a 1 hour reading after a breakfast of 1/3  cup of oatmeal, 1/3 cup of uncooked oat bran, walnuts, 1-1/2 cups blueberries & strawberries, 2/3 cup of low fat yougurt, and 1 ts cinnamon.
My 1-hour reading was 117.

I did the same
check after a dinner of 2 fried eggs and two pork chops.  reading was 114.

Am I doing something wrong?  I would have expected my post-breakfast meal to be much higher.

Thank you for any suggestions.
Tom

Hi, Tom--

I think that it just means that you are not very insulin resistant. Not perfect, but not bad at all, and you are able to tolerance some carbohydrates.

That's why I love individual postprandial blood checks so much: Everybody is so different.

Dr. Davis,
Thank you for your comment on my post.
I intend to continue with the postprandial testing until I've verified my response to fifferent foods.  Purchasing the meter and using it is a great recommendation.
Now, time to try a thick crust pizza and a Starbucks double latte with a snickers bar for desert!

why is it that only when I went to a vegan diet, inclusive of steel cut oats and plenty of legumes, whole grains, greens and fruit, did my fasting glucose finally settle into the 80's rather than over 100 when I was eating a higher fat low carb (less than 100 grams per day) diet??

"I'll give you a pair of nickels for you paradigms"
Dr. JM

It's very difficult to get people to believe how carbohydrates can be deleterious to the human body. Facts can never compete with beliefs...

Over millions of years of evolution, humans have adapted and evolved to a low carbohydrate, famine induced state of homeostasis. We (4.4M yrs) have existed in that environment until very recently. And only recently have we developed carbo-induced degenerative diseases.

The current research, studies, and human biochemistry support this view...NEJM, Lancet, AJCN, etc...

So, (Matt Stone) Dr. Burkitt's research was very limited at best...only observational studies of a selected population....not one that can apply to the American public today.

Dr Davis. I have been following your advice and bought a meter but I am lost here.

My fasting glucose readings are in the 100-110 every morning. Even at 4 am is 100. I follow a diet low in carbs.

All my post prandial readings are in the 90-120.

I am a 5 10", 200 lbs,exercise 30 minutes everyday, 25%fat.

How can I lower my fasting glucose?

Thanks

@Tom,

I'd suggest taking multiple readings, especially with a TrueTrack. I follow the instructions for calibration carefully, yet still often get wildly varied readings. For example, yesterday, three tests taken within five minutes yielded: 120, 106, 91. Sometimes the groupings are much tighter. I've spoken with others using TrueTrack and have received similar feedback.

Whenever you get a reading that doesn't seem right, test again. It's hard on the fingers, but may offer some useful insight...

You'll find Dr. D's recommendations for meters elsewhere in his blog. I'll be picking up a different brand next time I see a rebate.

Add another chapter to the novel: in susceptible people, excess carbs cause acid reflux. Carbs, unlike protein and fat, can lead to gas, which pushes stomach acid into the esophagus. Curing acid reflux is as simple as cutting down on carbs--I've done it.

Since in traditional societies where people ate lots of rice, or corn, squash and beans people tended not to get obese or diabetic, I have to suspect there's something about wheat and sugar rather than carbs in general that's bad for us.

It is very important to maintain blood sugar levels. High Blood sugar can be very dangerous and unhealthy. High blood sugar in medical terms is known as hyperglycemia. Having high blood sugar can cause many diseases of heart, kidney etc. There are many signs of high blood sugar such as excessive urination, excessive thirst, weight loss, tiredness etc. Right exercise and diet helps in maintaining blood sugar levels.

To ONSCHEDULE,

Thank you for you suggestion.  I did follow the instructions about the calibration.

I'm thinking now of doing a test at 30", 60", 90", and 2 hours to see how the readings change.

Sincerely,
Tom

Hi Dr. Davis,

Great great valuable post as usual, and right on point.

Billy E

To all the great within commenter's,

I enjoyed all of your comments.  I just read a newly published amazing study in Science Daily (Mar. 29, 2010)which gave me an AH HA! moment.  I just had to write a post about it and share it with you.  It is entitled "Eating low fat and high carbohydrate causes compulsive eating and shares addictive biochemical mechanisms with cocaine, and heroin abuse".  This post can be found at nephropal.com.

Billy E

I think fructose deserves a special mention when talking about the evils of high carb eating.  Our blood glucose does not spike after we eat fructose.  Our meters do not even budge.  They are glucometers not fructometers.  Ironically, fructose is far more damaging to the human body than glucose. Fructose creates ten times a many advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) as glucose.  I call fructose the stealth carb ... deadly and not easily detected.

Whenever I see Matt Stone post somewhere, I figure it is time to move on. He still has no concept that many people can not process Carbs due to diabetes and other metabolic condidtions and that eating them does not self correct the problem.

Can someone comment on lentils.  Do they spike your blood sugar?

hey, i am really enjoying your blog, have read some about this in the past, and have had an easy time loosing weight when i cut out wheats and sugars, but i am curious about asians, rice and sugar is a staple in asian diets, japanese and chinese come to mind, yet when i think of japanese i think of healthy society, what are your thoughts on this? have studies been done, do their simply appear healthy while on the inside there cholestoral numbers are way off,
thanks
ian

Onions and raw almonds spike my blood sugar. Green peppers also have sugar and I believe they'd spike my blood sugar as well. I wonder if it's ok to eat oatmeal if my BG only goes to 120. However, I remain in the pre-diabetic state and never seem to recover, just like with fruit. I can't fast because I'm currently unable to gain weight. Oats do stabilize blood sugar, perhaps I'll just eat a small amount with fat and see how that works.

I read Jeff's article, if I'm not mistaken, a while back.  They served his father, dying of diabetes and reactive hypoglycemia, orange juice and toast in the hospital, if this is the same author.  The article was gripping, and I'm sure the book will be too!

It looks like we in the US are leaders in lower extremity amputations from diabetes--
http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/our-chronic-disease-care-aint-1-ctd/

EFA researcher Brian Peskin in his book "The Hidden Story of Cancer" says it's common practice in chemotherapy treatment centers to give cancer patients cookies, candies, sweets & fruit juices for energy.  But since cancers & systemic fungus operate by glycolysis, the fermentation of sugars, the carbs actually just feed the cancers the massive amounts of sugars they need to grow & proliferate. The level of ignorance in health care & many practitioners is downright criminal.

I too had to find my own way out of pre-diabetes. I still have normal blood sugar and insulin levels after 5 years. It's so sad that conventional wisdom and the ADA won't teach it. But, the ADA gets millions from drug companies, and there's no money curing diabetes with good food...

Hi cancerclasses,
For tumor cells to shift to aerobic glycolysis (Warburg effect) the isoform splicing of Pyruvate Kinase M2 has to be activated; this M2 isoform is what we normally use during embryonic development and influences how body's glucose directs downstream pyruvate to go. As adults we have the M1 pyruvate kinase form; and in experiments with cancer cells that replaced M2 with M1 pyruvate kinase isoform the Warburg effect in that cell is stopped (as evidenced by decreased lactate output and greater oxygen useage).
See decade of published research from H.R. Chriatofk.

As for limiting glucose to reverse cancer, there likely is a limit to how effective that is all by itself;  this seems to currently be implicated as an adjunct to other treatments.
For an excellent  2010  comprehensive technical detail review see http://
sdjohnston.faculty.noctrl.edu/360/targetingcancermetab.pdf
Also, see decade of published research from E. Gottlieb

Hi Doctor Davis,
Server blocked me where relevant so finally writing this here:
I think your wife's athletic competitiveness may benefit from brown rice Amazake; I have data for a low and double dose. High brown rice Amazake  dose took my fasting blood sugar of 96 in 1st 15 min to 120, and in 1st hour to 117; but then every 15 min. back up to 125, 134, 120 and by 2nd hour to 139 (note:  was sedentary during 2 hour test span) .  A lower by half  dose of brown rice Amazake had blood sugar declining steadily after 2nd hour to finish only 1 point above fasting blood glucose reading.

I take this to indicate that a reasonable dose of  brown rice Amazake provides not only the initial spike in glucose,  but  that after 1 hour the brown rice Amazake remnant molecules in the intestines are still being metabolized by gut bacteria . My surmise is there is enhanced ability of gut bacteria to utilize the brown rice Amazake substrate results resulting in a progressive absorption of energy by the body ; since this seemingly is still going on in significant amounts well into the 2nd hour post-prandial (ex: 2 hour glucose of 139 is highest  of any earlier readings, even compared to initial blood glucose from amylose rush ).  Thus brown rice Amazake may be an ideal way for a performance athlete to benefit from their need for carbohydrates,  either in training or possibly even during competition; I  will discuss Amazake more if you  want.

I couldn't get Mighto's link to work but with a bit of searching found this.
Targeting metabolic transformation for cancer therapy

On the subject of Diabetes Lustig's latest video " Interventions to Reduce Sugar Consumption has a remarkable graphic comparing soda per capita with diabetes incidence.
See also Metabolic and behavioural effects of sucrose and fructose/glucose drinks in the rat

HI, Might--
Nice thought. Thanks.
My wife and her triathlon friends do indeed struggle to find reasonable high-carb fuel sources for their extended workouts. The bananas and sweet potato thing gets a bit old, and many of them have reactions to Goo, or try to avoid fructose sources, or have reactions to components like maltodextrin.

Oh I agree there is very poor education about heart disease and diabetes but you need to use your own common sense too. Maybe I should say your mental health needs to be monitored more carefully too. Like for instance, my mother in law caved into a depression, quit exercising and  started eating 3 cartons of icecream a week! I am not joking here at all. Now she is not only diabetic but due to complications from the diabetes, she has end stage heart failure and even with the best heart rate monitor her life may be extended due to constant monitoring but we all know what the end result will be. But the sad thing is, when she has been hospitalized she was given sugary foods while they knew of her diabetes!!!

Look: I think the blogess wrote this poem just for you...
http://thebloggess.com/2011/08/i-can-only-assume-theyve-never-read-my-blog-before/

There once was a girl from Nantucket,
Who bought Imperial Sugar by the bucket.
She scarfed candies and sweeties,
‘Til she got diabetes.
Then she lost both her legs and said, “F*ck it”.