insulin

Special Episode #4: Life & Blood Sugar [Show Notes]

 in Diabetes / Podcasts / Special Edition  tagged allergies / blood sugar / Diabetes / exercise / glucose / glycogen / hormones / insulin / sickness / Sleep / smoking / stress / T1D by

For someone with diabetes, everything they do in life affects their blood sugar.  They could be eating 100% right and taking their medicine 100% right, and something would cause the blood sugar to be off.

Exercise

It is well-accepted that exercise is good for you.  Your body will store extra sugar as a large molecule called Glycogen.  Imagine a line of kindergarteners hold hands trying to make it through the museum, Glycogen is just a bunch of glucoses holding hands.  When you’re not eating, your body will snip off a glucose at a time as it needs it.  The liver stores and directs the glycogen most of the time.  Your skeletal muscles also store some glycogen, because when they do work (i.e. exercise), it takes too long for the liver to snip off glucose from glycogen and send it to them.  

After exercise, the body replenishes the muscles’ glycogen stores.  This can cause the blood sugar level to drop, for someone with diabetes, this can be dangerous because they can’t “untake” medicine.  When protein and carbohydrates are eaten together, before or after exercise, the blood sugar changes can happen more slowly – the nutrient absorption in the gut causes a “traffic jam” of sorts.

Sleep

Certain metabolism processes happen only when you sleep.    Some people with diabetes wake up with really high blood sugar, others wake up with really low blood sugar.  Sleep is not restful and restorative if the blood sugar is out of balance, but also if sleep is not restful, then blood sugar levels can be jacked up – not just in the morning, but for the rest of the day.

Stress

The hormones that are triggered by stress – even something as basic as adrenaline, can cause the body to respond to insulin and glucose differently.  

Sickness

Your body is going to responds things differently when the immune system is in high gear – that includes insulin, glucose, the food you eat.  An infection requires an antibiotic because you are infected with a bacteria.  Bacteria are living organisms.  Living organisms consume energy sources and produce waste.  This can affect the sugar levels in your bloodstream.  You’re immune system doing work also burns sugar.

Allergies

Works about the same as sickness.  Your immune system is actively trying to protect you from something (allergens) and so it responds differently.

Smoking

If you smoke, STOP!  The nicotine and other chemicals make you more resistant to insulin.  This is most troublesome in Type 2 Diabetes.

Hormones

Especially for women, hormone cycles can affect sensitivity to insulin differently during different times of the month.  Adrenaline can override almost any response to any previous hormone response.

Life is hard

Life with diabetes is super hard.  Diabetes and other chronic diseases are silent and it doesn’t show on the outside at first sight.  Extend grace, extend compassion.

The Nashville chapter of JDRF is having their annual One Walk on September 24th. Friend of the show and previous guest, Rachel Mayo has been #T1D for over 10 years and she is passionate about the cutting edge research and support JDRF provides for people and their families. Her goal is for her team to raise $5000, you can contribute!

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Music Credits:  “Radio Martini” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)  Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Insulin is not bad [Show Notes]

 in Diabetes / Podcasts  tagged Diabetes / diets / fat / glucose / insulin by

An image of a hand underling the word "DIABETES" in red marker. All Type 1 diabetics and many Type 2 diabetics depend on insulin to stay alive.

The Bottom Line

Without insulin, you would die!

Some Basics

Sugar scrub = sugar + water (+/- essential oils)
– a good exfoliant to remove dead skin

Your tiniest capillaries are so small that red blood cells can barely squeeze through one at a time.  So, if the fluid around the red blood cell is full of sugar, it’s like that sugar scrub on your skin.

And that extra sugar can damage the capillaries in your eyes, finger tips, toes, and organs.

The cells in your body require glucose to do their jobs.  

Insulin

Insulin is the only key that will let the glucose in.  No key means no glucose.  No glucose means no energy.  And no energy eventually means death.

Insulin is also responsible for fat storage.

If you don’t eat the sugars, the body will use the fat stores on your body for energy.  But if you don’t consume energy sources (by being on a specific diet) AND your energy stores are depleted, your body will break down the proteins (aka muscles of your body) to make energy.  Your brain (and other organs in your body don’t want you to die).

Sugars and fats you eat gets turned into glucose.  Insulin opens the doors to allow the cells to use the glucose.  If there’s extra glucose around, insulin tells the liver to link it together to form glycogen and store it for later.  If the glycogen storage is full, insulin tells the liver to turn the glucose into triglycerides (think clogged arteries and growing fat deposits).

Free glucose is the easiest and fastest to use.  But during times that you’re not actively consuming sugars (like when you’re sleeping), your body is still working and that’s when glycogen can be used to provide glucose.

How much sugar in a day?  

It’s always different for different people.  The goal is having a level blood sugar as much of the day as possible.  The rule of complex carbs being better than simple carbs is true, because it takes your body longer to break down and use complex carbs.  While simple carbs usually dump a whole log of glucose in your blood stream at one time.  And natural sugars are better than processed sugars because processed sugars tend to be more concentrated.

Your body has an easier time utilizing nutrients and supplements that look more like itself over ones that are synthesized in lab.

Holla!

Rachel Mayo is my diabetes hero!

Find her at:

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T1D vs T2D

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Type 1 Diabetes vs Type 2 Diabetes

 in Diabetes / Podcasts  tagged Diabetes / insulin / medicine / Type 1 / Type 2 by

An image of a hand underling the word "DIABETES" in red marker

Diabetes Facts

All of the cells in your body depend on different forms of sugars to make energy (mostly glucose though).

Insulin works like a key to unlock the doors of the cells and let the sugar in to be used.

Adults get newly diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes too, it’s not just a childhood disease like a lot of marking will make you think.

Diabetes: Type 1 vs Type 2

Type 1 Diabetes: The pancreas (insulin factory) quits working or becomes dysfunctional.

Type 2 Diabetes: The key holes and the doors are broken or jammed and the insulin “key” won’t fit in them as well or at all.  This is known as insulin resistance.

In Type 1, you have to import insulin (aka injections), because you can’t make your own insulin anymore, ever.

Insulin pumps (outside pancreas) give a continuous flow of insulin and can sense sugar levels. It tries to operate as much like a natural pancreas would.

In Type 2, the medications are being developed to encourage your body to use your natural insulin as best and as long as possible.

There are lots of ways to get in a door if they key won’t work, thus there are lots of different medications to help in Type 2.

Holla!

Shout out to Rachel Mayo (@rachelcmayo) for her inspiration for this topic and for her strength and courage to not be scared of #T1D.

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