Blood sugar is measured as the amount of glucose in your bloodstream. At the doctor’s office, they often measure this level fasting, but people with both Type I and Type II Diabetes measure it throughout the day.
One can’t talk about blood sugar without Insulin. Insulin is a hormone released from the pancreas in relation to how much sugar, or glucose, was in your meal. Insulin fits like a key in a lock to open the cell and allows the glucose in the bloodstream into the cell.
Controlling blood sugar and insulin release can have lasting effects on your health throughout your life. Not only will you prevent Type II Diabetes, but you will maintain brain health, prevent damage to blood vessels and maintain a healthy weight. Controlling blood sugar and an excessive release of insulin has to do with how much glucose is in your meal, or the glycemic index of each food. Glycemic index is the amount of insulin released in your blood after a certain food is ingested. It is on a scale from 1-100 with 100 being the largest release of insulin. For example, a glycemic index of 100 would be pure glucose. Pure glucose is usually only obtained from a doctor’s office for testing purposes. Other high glycemic index foods include white potato, white rice, baguette, and other starchy products. As you can see, “sugar” does not have to mean table sugar or what you find in sodas, but can be used interchangeably with starchy carbohydrates.
The high sugar foods are broken down and a large amount of glucose is released into the blood before the insulin can take effect. These high glycemic foods cause the pancreas to release an abundance of insulin. Once the insulin unlocks the cell, the sugar moves from the blood into the cells, decreasing actual blood sugar. But, when too much insulin is released, as with high glycemic foods, too many receptors are unlocked and it causes a rush of the glucose into the cell. Now, too many receptors have been opened, and too much glucose has gone into the cell, resulting in very low blood sugar all over again. Think of when you eat a candy bar and how energetic you may feel right away, but in about an hour, you feel very sleepy and lethargic. This phenomenon is due to the large insulin swings induced by eating high sugar and high glycemic index foods. In Type II Diabetes, insulin has been secreted at such a high level for so long, that the insulin receptors on the cell become habituated and actually begin to shut off. The receptors essentially have been flooded with insulin their entire lives, and become too tired to work anymore. Therefore, in Type II Diabetics, you still release insulin, but your cells can no longer uptake the sugar from the blood. This phenomenon leaves the blood sugar consistently high. On the other hand, Type I Diabetics cannot secrete insulin from the pancreas and therefore have to inject themselves with insulin after meals.
Some swing throughout the day of blood sugar is completely normal. But, what happens is that people tend to swing both above and below the accepted range for normal blood sugar. Good blood sugar levels should fluctuate ideally between 80 and 140 throughout the day. Fasting blood sugar, when you wake up, should be between 80 and 100. After a meal, it may go up to 140, and then after 3-4 hours you may find yourself hungry and your blood sugar would be closer to 100. If your blood sugar is going over 160 at any time you are doing damage to your red blood cells and brain. Your red blood cells glycosylate, or add a glucose molecule to the cell, at blood sugar levels over 160. This “glycosylated hemoglobin”, measured as Hemoglobin A1C levels on a blood test, acts as a sharp shard of glass roaming throughout your body. This sharp glycosylated hemoglobin can knick the insides of types of blood vessels and nerves in small spaces. This is why many Type II Diabetics begin to have nerve damage and loss of feeling in their feet or hands.
Maintaining healthy blood sugar levels throughout the day is an important but simple, lasting health practice that you can do almost always on your own in your daily life. It is not necessary to have a glucometer to measure your blood sugar throughout the day if you do not have diabetes. If you do have diabetes, it is even more important to begin to learn the kinds of foods and drinks that put your body in the dangerous swing zone of insulin and blood sugar. Medication will not always work on its own, it is vital to learn how foods affect your body and insulin. With Type II Diabetes, some of the insulin receptors have stopped working, but they will begin to function properly if they are no longer bombarded with constant high amounts of insulin. Knowing simple dietary precautions can arm you with an effective arsenal of information to prevent many chronic degenerative diseases as well as effectively manage a current diabetes diagnosis.