When to measure blood sugar

Dr. William Davis' Heart Scan Blog is one of the better ones (I need to get a blogroll here soon).

I was wondering if measuring my blood sugar two hours later (as the ADA and the makers of my glucose monitor say) was correct--I hadn't gone back to check Dr. Bernstein's book, but remembered one hour as the significant time (and that's how I've been testing).

And so, along comes a post on Dr. Davis' site: "One hour blood sugar: Key to carbohydrate control and reversing diabetes." Just what I needed!

A bit of what he says:

Diabetics are instructed to monitor blood glucose first thing in the morning and two hours after eating. This helps determine whether blood sugar is controlled with medications like metformin, Januvia, Byetta injections, or insulin.

But that’s not how you use blood sugar to prevent or reverse diabetes. Two-hour blood sugars are also of no help in deciding whether you have halted glycation, or glucose modification of proteins the process that leads to cataracts, brittle cartilage and arthritis, oxidation of small LDL particles, atherosclerosis, kidney disease, etc.

So the key is to check one-hour after-eating (postprandial) blood sugars, a time when blood glucose peaks after consumption of carbohydrates.

Perfect for me right now.

He also mentions building your own peaking curve by testing every 15 minutes. I may try that a few times to see if my peak is different than just one hour.

But this is incredibly helpful.

As does Bernstein, he forcefully questions allowing blood sugar to go high:

I reject the insane notion that after-eating blood sugars of less than 200 mg/dl are acceptable, the value accepted widely as the cutoff for health. Blood sugars this high occurring with any regularity ensure cataracts, arthritis, and all the other consequences of cumulative glycation. I therefore aim to keep one-hour after-eating glucoses 100 mg/dl or less. If you start in a pre-diabetic or diabetic range of, say, 120 mg/dl, then I advise people to not allow blood glucose to go any higher. A pre-meal blood glucose of 120 mg/dl would therefore be followed by an after-eating blood glucose of no higher than 120 mg/dl.

More important advice for me to reinforce that I need to keep truly tight control over blood sugar, not what the ADA calls "tight" control!

Next three days and further experiment

So, I'm continuing to see drops in blood glucose:
Saturday - 97, 82, 105
Sunday - 98, 81
Monday - 86, 86, 85

More significant was an experiment done twice with protein drinks, but now with 2 scoops of Designer Whey, one of BCCA, 1 tbl coconut oil, 2 tbl heavy cream, 1 raw egg. The first day I followed one hour later with BG of 81, the next day of 86.

This is very helpful for me, since I tend to get tired of meat if I eat it too often (strange that I can eat chips, burgers, tacos, and drink cokes day after day with no let up!).

On the other hand, doing this rather than real food may lead to slightly slower weight loss, but it's worth it if I can be more successful at keeping on the diet.