Complex carbs vs. Simple Carbs ? Posted: 05-24-08 21:07pm
I have been feeling great when I eat
chicken + beans w/ no breads/starches.
The only bread I eat in the morning is 2
slices of very high fiber bread with 4
eggs. I can tolerate it just fine, as
well as the beans for lunch. But after I
was feeling back to my old self, after a
week of doing low carb high protein, i
went and got deep dish pizza and had about
4 slices. About 12 hours later I felt
exactly like I did when my symptoms were
at their worst - light headed, dizzy,
tingling in hands, can't focus, feel like
my brain is going dead. This lasted for
almost the entire day.
I went back to my regular diet but then
last night I had mexican food - 2 burritos
(2 flour tortillas). I reacted to this in
about 15-20min and had the same feelings
for about 4-5 hours. It went away much
faster.
Yet I can eat half or all of a banana, or
go get ice cream with my friends and not
have the same feeling.
So my question is - why do all the
hypoglycemia websites say to avoid simple
sugars and to embrace complex carbs like
starchy stuff? Why am I reacting to
anything starchy but ice cream doesn't
really bother me a whole lot?
|
VictoriaGB
Supporter
Joined: 25 Apr 2008 Posts: 211 Location: Wales, UK
Thanks: 3
Thanked:0
Posted: 05-25-08 15:03pm
I'm the same way. In theory, complex
carbohydrates should be better as they
take much longer to break down into
glucose - where simple carbohydrates can
be absorbed very quickly the shorter chain
sugars they contain. But in reality,
complex carbohydrates can be more of a
problem for people with this condition,
which is confusing for doctors. The exact
cause of reactive hypoglycemia is still up
for debate and as I said elsewhere, a lot
of doctors still don't recognise
hypoglycemia in non diabetics.
Now, it's true that complex carbohydrates
take longer to break down into glucose and
so don't cause the insulin spike (when
eaten in moderation) that glucose itself
would - therefor you should, in theory,
find that when you've eaten a pizza and
are feeling symptoms, your blood sugars
aren't actually low. In other words,
complex carbs don't cause a hypoglycemia
(actual low blood sugar) reaction, as is
repeated in almost any advice you find for
hypoglycemia. Yet they do still cause
symptoms in all those with this similar
condition. Why, is a complete mystery to
me and to the medical world it seems.
Some things important to bare in mind is
that 1) everyones body is different, your
symptoms will vary along with reaction
time and what foods you can/can't
tolerate. 2) If you have hypoglycemia,
whether reactive or fasting, there will be
an underlying cause. With reactive
hypoglycemia, as I said, the cause can be
very debatable and isn't very well
understood. Some causes are thought to be
hormone deficiencies, or a carbohydrate
sensitivity/intolerance (which I have, and
is the likely problem if you can't
tolerate complex carbs/starches), or
possibly an intolerance to certain
starches/proteins. It could also be a
temporary hypoglycemia caused by stomach
surgery or pregnancy which are more
straight forward explanations.
So as I said, I also have this problem
with complex carbohydrates (bread, pizza,
potatoes, rice, pasta, cereals, flour
products, wholemeal or otherwise) and I'd
love to get to the bottom of the cause. At
the moment my problem is thought to be a
carbohydrate sensitivity and so I'm
diagnosed with hypoglycemia due to
carb/sugar sensitivity. I can't eat carbs
except for veggies in small amounts, and
milk, milk is fine surprisingly as long as
I don't drink a pint at a time.
My advice to you is to eat what you know
you can tolerate, and avoid what you
can't, because diet is a very personal
thing there's no guidelines set in stone.
Make a list, you know better than anyone
what gives you symptoms and what doesn't.
It sounds like, as with me, you need to
cut out the flour, bread, pizza etc.
Secondly, don't over eat, just eat until
you're comfortable, and eat regular. It's
important that you don't over eat or this
alone can cause symptoms.
Don't bank on an explanation, I've been
searching for many years. These longer
term symptoms are a mystery. Just adjust
your diet to suit you, an explanation can
come later.
Personally I'm leaning towards adrenal
fatigue. This is just my theory so don't
take it in stone. Adrenaline is one of the
hormones produced to prevent a hypo in the
event of blood sugars plummeting. When you
eat simple sugars your blood sugar drops
so far so fast, glycogen and other
prevention hormones don't have a chance to
kick in in time and so your blood sugar
falls too low for a brief period (some
people pass out for a few minutes for
example). You should find that following a
low blood sugar, your blood sugar will
raise a little, about 1-2mmol, this is
glycogen etc kicking in (unless the cause
of your hypoglycemia is lack of these hypo
prevention hormones of course).
With complex carbohydrates you don't have
the spike, but you may still have a
potential low blood sugar which is
prevented by glycogen/adrenaline etc
kicking in. In my theory, if you follow
the wrong diet and are causing this
reaction repetitively then your adrenal
glands are going to get fatigued.
Resulting in the symptoms like fatigue,
brain fog, drunken feeling, but you won't
find the low blood sugar.
In short, I think it's possible that
reactive hypoglycemia, if not treated
properly, can be accompanied by an adrenal
fatigue which explains both the immediate
and longer term symptoms you find with the
condition.
|
Stan
Moderator
Joined: 01 Jan 2006 Posts: 1696 Location: ,
Thanks: 3
Thanked:0
Posted: 05-27-08 00:56am
Yeah, but are you eating the ice cream and
such after eating the burrito? If you're
mixing all these foods into the same few
days, it's quite difficult to tell what's
causing the reaction because sometimes, in
fact a lot of the time after you start to
get better, you can eat a bad food and not
feel it for up to five days in some cases.