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Conditions and Diseases > Hypoglycemia Forum > Proteins trigger low blood sugar
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Q: Proteins trigger low blood sugar
asked by: Niklas89 on June 8th, 2009
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I like to experiment myself because that's the only thing I can do to find what works for me.
Lately I have been interested in what a diabetic expert wrote about hypoglycemia reaction.

Brief story: Henry Seale discovered Reactive Hypoglycemia (formerly called disynsulinism) when he noticed non diabetic patients who had the same symptoms of diabetic patients who had taken too much insulin. Hence when I read about something that works in preventing or treating hypoglycemia in diabetics type 1 because of excessive insulin, I know it will work for reactive hypoglycemia as well.

What this diabetic expert wrote is you can make your hypoglycemia works by trying to raise your blood sugar eating lot of sugar stuff. We know this too well: you have hypo and you eat chocolate and biscuits to raise your blood sugar, you feel great for few minutes and then you have a crash which is worse than the one you had before. That's why we keep suggesting to raise your blood sugar with proteins instead of sugar.

On the other hand we have only 1 teaspoon of blood sugar dissolved at any time in our whole blood and it takes just 2 grams of glucose to raise an hypoglycemic blood sugar. This is 20 time less than your typical sugar binge hypoglycemics use or used to raise their blood sugar at times of hypo. According to this expert 2 grams of glucose is all you need to raise your blood sugar, to give a starving brain a bit of mind fuel and it is such a little amount that it won't cause a rebound later crash effect.

To make a long story short I have tried and it works.
2 grams of either pure glucose or 4-5 discs of candies made with glucose, are enough to raise my blood sugar and to prevent a quick crash which is what happened when I used to eat jam and honey by the spoon to stop my hypos.

This might be usefull at night or other times when we have an hypo but don't want to ruin our digestion eating or can set a complete meal.

That being said yesterday morning I took 2 grams of glucose in water, my blood sugar raised to 85 and didn't drop for hours. So there wasn't any sooner drop than what would normally occur from eating a complete low carb meal.

4 hours later I had an omelette made with 2 eggs, shredded full fat mozzarella cheese, aragula.
The omelette was cooked in a butter covered skillet.

But 15 minutes after eating my omelette, my sugar started dropping instead of staying balanced or raising.
Immediately I felt hypo and tested hypo with my glucometer.
This is not the first time eggs make this effect on me and in fact I know a diabetics who eat eggs whe he has too high blood sugar and want them lowered. I want to try the same exact experiment with chicken breast, but it seems to me that proteins might trigger hypoglycemia by lowering normal blood sugars.

What do you think?
Even happened to you?
Any idea why this might be happening?
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danielv
replied on June 11th, 2009
Advanced Support Team
Hi Niklas,

What you are saying is very interesting, and I enjoyed your scientific evaluation of the situation. I am not diabetic however I also experience severe crashes after consuming protein.

I try to avoid protein during lunch time, because otherwise I am literally falling off of my chair at work. My brain feels like it is going numb.

I have noticed that for me proteins work only early in the morning, or late in the evening. During the middle of the day - they knock me out. For example: an omelette for breakfast will sustain me much better than an omelette for lunch. This could be because your blood sugar is actually higher in the morning (another fact borrowed from Diabetics). Apparently the body begins releasing stored glucose between 3am and 8am.

My personal theory: our "modern" lifestyle completely contradicts our programming by nature. I believe that we only need "normal" amounts of protein to perform physical tasks. The typical dose of protein (2 eggs, a steak, etc) are way too much for a person who is sitting in front of a computer for 16 hours a day. If you're sitting all day using your mind, then really all you're functioning on is sugar - which would explain such dramatic sugar depletion levels as many people experience.

After realizing this, and transitioning to a mostly vegetarian diet, I have stopped suffering from such extreme crashes.

Eating lots of vegetables and eating more frequently are the only things that have helped me to avoid crashes. I also feel best when I receive as much dietary variety as possible.

Hope that helps
Daniel
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