RE: carb effect on blood glucose

April 5, 2007

Very good information here. There is also a chart in the book Pumping

Insulin by Walsh (he also writes a book called Using Insulin for those

on injections), that shows approximately how much one gram of carb will

raise your blood sugar based on body weight. These are just estimates, and

you will still need to experiment:

If your weight is 50 lbs (23 kg),1 gram will raise you about 8 mg/dl (0.44

mmol).

If your weight is 75 lbs (34 kg),1 gram will raise you about 7 mg/dl (0.39

mmol).

If your weight is 90 lbs (41 kg),1 gram will raise you about 6 mg/dl (0.33

mmol).

If your weight is 120 lbs (55 kg), 1 gram will raise you about 5 mg/dl (0.28

mmol).

If your weight is 160 lbs (73 kg), 1 gram will raise you about 4 mg/dl (0.22

mmol).

If your weight is 200 lbs (91 kg), 1 gram will raise you about 3 mg/dl (0.17

mmol).

I do not know if this would change with insulin resistence. I find this

chart is fairly accurate for me. If you are dosing insulin according to

carbs, however, be careful that you do it right. I grossly miscalculated

tonight at dinner (so much so that I must have been distracted while

bolusing, because I only bolused for about 30% of the meal I was eating),

and ended up very high (high teens), and it's harder to correct a mistake

like that than to make sure you don't make it in the first place. Many

people pre-bolus with their meals (take their insulin 20-30 minutes before

eating), because Humalog does not peak for about an hour and a half to two

hours in most people and this allows it to better match the carbohydrates

which are usually broken down a lot faster than even fast acting insulin can

work. Pre-bolusing can help a lot reducing spikes, but you shouldn't

pre-bolus if you are low to begin with. Some people also count protein in

addition to carbohydrates, and some even fat, especially if they can use the

extended and combination bolus features on a pump, but this gets beyond my

experience. Also, in addition to high blood sugars causing complications,

there is beginning to be evidence that glucose variability also has a large

role to play. There is a *lot* more information about these types of

techniques in Walsh's book, which I am scanning.

Jen

carb effect on blood glucose

All diabetics should know how carbohydrates affect their blood sugar level

or glucose level. All carbohydrates consumed are converted into the simplest

sugar glucose, which is utilized by the body for energy fuel. The conversion

rate for carbohydrates into glucose is practically 100%. In other words all

the carbohydrates consumed are converted by the liver into glucose, the fuel

that runs all of the body systems including organs, nerves, muscles, bones

and tendons. Excess glucose in the blood stream not used to fuel the bodily

processes are converted into fat with the storage hormone insulin, which is

also used to deliver glucose to every cell in the body. Insulin is the

deliverer of glucose. Without insulin glucose would not be sent to each

cell. Without insulin the cell would die. On the other hand if too much

glucose is in the blood stream, meaning high bs levels, it causes the rate

of glycation to rapidly increase and the excessive glucose is stuck on the

red blood cell in the form of sorbitol. This prevents the red blood cell

from transporting oxygen to the body cells, starving them of this vital

nutrient. In effect the red blood cell is now dead. Remember high blood

glucose levels is the primary cause of diabetic complications. Without

oxygen the cells will slowly die. In other words high bs levels cause

internal suffocation at a higher rate of the bodily tissues and organs.

Besides carbohydrates, there are two more sources of glucose available.

Protein is converted to glucose at a conversion of approximately 60%. . This

means for every 100 grams of protein consumed about 60 grams of it is

converted to glucose. About 10% of fat consumed is converted to glucose.

While all three sources fat, protein and carbohydrates provide glucose for

the body, the most dramatic rise in the bs level is always accompanied and

mostly affected by the consumption of carbohydrates. Each individual

diabetic can perform a simple experiment to know almost exactly how many bs

points will be raised by a single consumed gram of carbohydrate. Knowing

this fact about yourself can predict very closely what your bs point level

will be two hours after consuming carbs, provided one accurately counts the

number of grams of carbs consumed.

April 5, 2007

Insulin resistance does change the bs level quite a bit for me. How one gram of

carb affects one's bs level can only be determined by experimentation. After

many experiments I have determined that 1 gram of carb raises my bs level

7.25-7.50 points on average, which is much higher than the the 3.0 points in

Walsh's chart for a 190 pound person. Also consumption of large amounts of fat

delays the metabolism time of carbs, and this causes the bs to spike higher

much later than the researched time of 72minutes plus or minus 25 minutes.

One's bs usually spikes with carb consumption alone later in 47-97 minutes. For

practical purposes this usually means one's bs level will spike around an hour

or an hour and a half later after eating. This is not so if one consumes large

amounts of fat or drink large quantities of alcohol. This is why I eat and

drink, then I calculate the amount of carbs consumed, then inject Humalog

insulin afterwards, since the peak action of injected Humalog occurs around an

hour to an hour and a half later after injecrtion. While recorded guidelines

are helpful, if one really wants to know the effect of carb consumption, only

experimentation can reveal actual effects on one's bs levels.