Natural ways to lower blood sugar

[PenguinBear]

Can anyone suggest anything that can naturally lower blood sugar or good foods to eat?

Member of my family has been diagnosed with pre-Diabetes and told to lower their blood sugar fast.

They've had poor advice from their GP and have to wait over a month to see the diabetic nurse.

All advice welcome!

[mayihaveaboxofchoculaits]

Not too sure ,but I think the usual advice is exercise more, increase the steps you do,and stop sitting about-this will depend on the general age and mobility of coure(this helps with the production of good cholesterol, which offsets the bad),and of course, eat better. Less empty calories, so no convenience foods for example,more wholefoods.

[willyhaschips]

I have successfully lowered my blood sugar by following the paleolithic diet. Check out/Google 'Mark's Daily Apple' website. It tells you everything you need to know about it...for free!

[almaradlu]

Diet and exercise.

Firstly I am no expert and just giving information I was given and what I have expericened myself from using a blood glucose meter to monitor my levels.

Its not just cutting down on sweet, sugary foods , they also need to watch the amount of carbs that they eat at each meal. I was advised by my GP to aim for no more than 30-40 carbs per meal. .

Also watch fruit and fruit juices, whilst I find berries(strawbs, blueberries etc), peaches , nectarines clementines are fine for me I was told to avoid grapes and mangos. I also find bananas can raise my levels.

Try to eat low Gi as well.

If you need bread, swap white for brown, same for pasta and rice and have smaller portions than you normally would. Jacket pots are much higher in carbs than new pots. I was also told that some food might be fine for some, others may be effected differently.

There is a lot of information and advice on here

www.diabetes.co.uk/

hth

[TheJumped]

High protein and high fat, with lots of veg. No sugary stuff at all, and limit carbs.

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

Stop eating a starchy carbohydrate based diet. Get the majority of carbs from veg and leaves. Eat more natural fat and natural protein (not processed, processed foods are full of sugars and fast acting carbs. Don't drink calories (ie fruit juice, cola).
Read "Marks Daily Apple" blog, all recipes are low sugar, grain free, natural ingredients - and there is lots of info about the health benefits of eating real unprocessed foods on blood sugar and Health. It's all available free too! Pre diabetes is reversible with this way of eating.

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

Waves to Willyhaschips

[willyhaschips]

Waves back to RawCoconutMacaroon!

[Marjie3]

Chromium

[westcoastnortherner]

See the south beach diet.

[PenguinBear]

I will pass it all on, thank you :)

She has asked me to ask
"Does anyone know why I sometimes wake up with a blood sugar reading of 11 but it can drop down to 8 after a meal? Not on any medication or insulin"

I'm hoping you experts can answer that

[capsium]

Your body can metabolise muscle into glucose if blood glucose levels are very low. This prevents hypoglycaemia. So if this has happened during fasting it would raise blood sugar.

Also some food stuffs take hours to digest. Upon digestion the glucose is released. This could be some hours after eating.

[GoodnessIsThatTheTime]

Didn't the horizon fat vs sugar thing recently say that a no carb/no sugar diet actually ended up raising blood sugar. In his case from normal to pre diabetic?

[Yddraigoldragon]

The fasting reading i.e. when you wake up is after the body has worked overnight to digest food from the evening and then reset and balance levels for the following day.
I can go to bed with a reading below 6 and wake up in the high 7/8 range.
Best dietary advice is to eat low carb, high fat, medium protein, and ignore what the diabetic nurse peddles as 'healthy eating'. If she starts this now and sticks to it she has a chance of staying well.
Recommended reading Barry Groves, Dr Bernstein, Gary Taubes.

[capsium]

goodness that Horizon documentary was questionable to say the least. It has been discussed on other threads here:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/low_carb_bootcamp/1979443-Week-3-Low-Carb-Bootcamp-Where-we-stand-at-the-crossroads?pg=26

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/weight_loss_chat/1982152-Horizon-programme-sugar-v-fat?

[GoodnessIsThatTheTime]

Thanks, I'll look at the threads. I watched it least night on iplayer and ended up more confused than ever!

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

The program was utter shite on many levels but the misinterpretation of the glucose challenge at the end of the diet was AWFUL.

I straightaway said ffs, this will make people think reducing carbs is bad for blood sugar control! The opposite is true, and although it's counterintuitive, the results of the twins test show that!!!

Explanation - a month on a ketogenic diet (or any low carb diet) means the body adapts it's insulin response. You only need to produce small amounts of insulin, and even at mealtimes, your blood sugar level will stay low and not move much above a baseline rate (my figures are maybe 3.8-4.2 baseline, rise to maybe 5.8-6.8 after meals and return to baseline within about 2.5 hours). Blood sugar staying steady, low baseline and quick return to baseline are all really good things health wise. HOWEVER if you give a person setting a ketogenic diet a one off huge hit of glucose (which they did), they may struggle to produce the insulin required to deal with that one off situation (as the body has down regulated insulin production). But he was not in the diabetic range, it was little below pre diabetic.

The other twin scored "better" as his glucose challenge test gave a lower blood sugar level... Because his daily diet of very high levels of carbohydrate would have causes the body adapt by producing a lot more insulin all the time. His blood sugar would have been swinging up and down, staying above baseline for many hours... Not good for health, but it meant the large dose of glucose was no challenge to his metabolism, it was more like his normal dose of sugar (ie from breakfast cereal). Pumping out more and more insulin to cope with that sort of diet is the start of insulin resistance, metabolic diseases (including diabetes), so no, the "sugar diet" twin did not have a "healthier" blood sugar level as suggested by the test... It's more complicated than that!!!

[RawCoconutMacaroon]

*eating! Not setting.