Do you ever feel irritable or tired for no reason?
Do you have difficulty waking in the morning?
Do you crave stimulants (coffee/tea) or something sweet to in order to get you going?
You may be one of a multitude of people suffering from blood sugar imbalance and a failure to recognise it. Diabetes is a form of extreme blood sugar imbalance but many of us are not diabetic, yet experience dips and peaks in our blood sugars which leave us feeling moody, tired and craving pick me up’s. Expert nutritional therapists at the College of Naturopathic medicine say that nearly 30 % of patients they see in clinics have blood sugar imbalance. Gosia Desmond is a nutritional therapist who works in Ireland and abroad. As part of her assessment of a client she requests them to fill out a food diary. She says a large number of them report reaching out for a donut and coffee every afternoon, this is known as the 4 pm slump and is a sign of blood sugar fluctuations.
Many of us live pressurised lives, exercise too little and have too many refined, sugary and fatty foods in our diet. These three factors set us off down the road of ill-health. We assume that the advice to avoid sugar, fatty foods, to eat more than five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, exercise frequently and avoid stress is for other people and doesn’t apply to us. Avril Ivory (M.Sc), Academic Director of CNM says that it is a very common phenomenon that people ignore their own susceptibility to disease and believe that it simply won’t happen to them. But it is happening to them. Current levels of obesity, diabetes and heart disease in Ireland are amongst the highest in Europe.
One of the first things we can focus on to avoid being one of these statistics is to recognize that it can also happen to us and that in order to prevent it we all have to make lifestyle choices that promote health and wellbeing, keep our bodies at an optimal weight and help us be more resistant to stress. Those choices can also promote healthy blood sugar balance.
What do we mean by unstable blood sugar? What are the main signs and symptoms? Why does it develop? What are the long term effects? These are frequently asked questions.
Firstly look to see do any of these symptoms apply to you.
- Do you often crave a coffee, cigarette, sweet food to keep going?
- Do you find you feel hungry a lot of the time?
- Do you frequently feel too tired to exercise?
- Do you feel irritable or dizzy if you skip a meal?
- Do you get night sweats or frequent headaches
If you have ticked several of these you may need to address your blood sugar balance.
When we eat a meal we experience a temporary rise in our blood glucose, type of sugar that fuels our cells. As levels of glucose in the blood increase, the pancreas secretes a hormone called insulin. The insulin causes the body cells to absorb the glucose and the blood sugar level comes back down again. If however we are suffering from prolonged stress, have too many sugary foods along with having too much fat in our diet the effectiveness of insulin to bring the blood sugars into the cells can be impaired and the blood glucose levels begin to see-saw.
We are beginning to develop so-called lower sensitivity to insulin, we crave sweet foods, may experience hunger more often, our energy levels are low and we start gaining excess weight. If this situation continues in the long term we can become diabetic.
If you recognise these signs and symptoms as being relevant to you the good news is that by making small changes in behaviour we can reset our blood sugar mechanisms and regain abundant energy and loose weight. People are often mystified as to why they continue to gain weight even when on an apparently healthy diet. Insulin resistance is usually responsible. In the long term, if the blood sugars are constantly fluctuating than this can cause damage to the arteries. This simple three pronged approach works every time.
1) Incorporating exercise into their lifestyles
2) Controlling stress
3) Nutritional change
Exercise: Even 30 minutes of vigorous exercise 4 times a week will reduce sugar in the bloodstream, lower insulin production and allow more blood flow in the arteries and extremities.
Controlling stress is of fundamental importance. For many of us the root of the problem is stress. It is now estimated that stress underpins over 80% of disease processes. Many of us are commuting long hours to work, working way over the standard 40 hour week, meeting tight deadlines and high productivity targets and are responding to this lifestyle by constantly releasing stress chemicals. These stress chemicals cause our blood sugars to spin out of control so the first approach we need to take is to identify sources of stress and alter the sources or develop coping mechanisms.
Nutrition: High protein meals four times a day used to be the recommended treatment approach. However the main sources of protein – animal products- are high in fat (fat content of meat can range from 35%- 60%). Although those foods do not cause rapid releases of sugars into the bloodstream, they can contribute to long-term ineffectiveness of insulin activity. We know now that more fat there is in the diet, the harder time insulin has in getting glucose into the cells. Conversely, minimizing fat intake and reducing body fat help insulin do its job much better.
Fat content in beans however is 3%, fruit 4% and vegetables 3%- 10%. Those foods are also high in fibre, which helps the insulin to work better in controlling blood sugars.
