7 ms·

Personalized Nutrition by Prediction of Glycemic Responses (2015)

52 points by IntronExon 9y ago

dilap 9y ago
Quickly skimming, am I correct in assuming they are only looking at meals that contain a high carbohydrate load? Considering that a popular theory for avoiding bad post-prandial glycemic responses is to avoid eating a lot of carbs, this seems...curious. Or did I misunderstand? (E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzcOz38FjaU&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzcOz38FjaU&t=2s)
e40 9y ago
I recently switched doctors because I told her I wanted to do blood sugar tests after each meal and throughout the day to see how my food intake (or lack thereof, since I do IF) would impact my blood sugar. She literally sent me a screed about how I was an idiot and the mortality rate for people who do this type of thing is much higher. (I realize I can just go to CVS and buy the tools to do it, but I do find all the options overwhelming and haven't had time to do the research.) I'm glad to see this happening.
- naasking 9y ago
  > She literally sent me a screed about how I was an idiot and the mortality rate for people who do this type of thing is much higher. What was her evidence?
  - e40 9y ago
    She claimed "studies" showed this. Honestly, I called Kaiser immediately and requested a new PCP and didn't really care to delve into it. I wasn't doing it because I'm a hypochondriac, I had a genuine interest in minimizing (in a healthy way) my blood sugar (she completely ignore that part of my request).
- didgeoridoo 9y ago
  Well, to be fair, the life expectancy of people who check their blood sugar multiple times per day IS substantially lower. Because these people are generally diabetic.
- gumby 9y ago
  > I wanted to do blood sugar tests after each meal and throughout the day to see how my food intake (or lack thereof, since I do IF) would impact my blood sugar...I realize I can just go to CVS and buy the tools to do it, but I do find all the options overwhelming and haven't had time to do the research. I'll save you the work. Do go to CVS, buy the cheap cvS branded meter, a single box of strips, a single box of lancets and one lancing device if it doesn't come with the cheap meter. This is probably all you'll ever need. Then go buy an abbott Freestyle Libre meter from France, Italy or a UK mail order pharmacy. This will measure your glucose continuously for a couple of weeks via a disposable patch; you can collect the data with an android phone. Transdermal glucose is different from circulatory glucose, so the point of the regular kit is to normalize the transdermal readings with the actual BG levels. Since you're not actually trying to keep yourself alive (as I am) you could skip this and simply look at the shape of the curve. The other thing to do is log your sleep, excercise, diet (with something like MyFitnessPal that tracks your macros if you get the paid version) and stress levels. Then you can correlate glucose modulation with these exogenous factors. You have to get your meter and consumables (patches) from the countries I listed (not, say, germany which requires a prescription). The device has been recently approved in the US but Abbott set it up so in the US the patches only last 10 days instead of two weeks and can only be read by a physician.
mrfusion 9y ago
I was reading that insulin response is more important than glycemic for storing fat. And surprisingly they’re not that correlated.
- didgeoridoo 9y ago
  To clarify, glycemic and insulinemic response are correlated over time (i.e. a glycemic response is highly predictive of a corresponding insulinemic response), but the relative scale between the responses varies between individuals. Higher insulin response for a given level of blood glucose can be a sign of insulin resistance, which is associated with fat storing — and a long list of other very nasty metabolic outcomes.
  - mrfusion 9y ago
    What I meant is that “certain foods (e.g., lean meats and proteins) cause an insulin response despite there being no carbohydrates present, and some foods cause a disproportionate insulin response relative to their carbohydrate load.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index
  - mrfusion 9y ago
    Actually here’s the article and the main take away “With the insulin index, it was realized that only 23% of the variability of insulin response depends on the glucose.” https://idmprogram.com/insulin-index/ https://idmprogram.com/insulin-index/

52 points by IntronExon 9y ago

Quickly skimming, am I correct in assuming they are only looking at meals that contain a high carbohydrate load? Considering that a popular theory for avoiding bad post-prandial glycemic responses is to avoid eating a lot of carbs, this seems...curious. Or did I misunderstand? (E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzcOz38FjaU&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzcOz38FjaU&t=2s)

e40 9y ago

I recently switched doctors because I told her I wanted to do blood sugar tests after each meal and throughout the day to see how my food intake (or lack thereof, since I do IF) would impact my blood sugar. She literally sent me a screed about how I was an idiot and the mortality rate for people who do this type of thing is much higher. (I realize I can just go to CVS and buy the tools to do it, but I do find all the options overwhelming and haven't had time to do the research.) I'm glad to see this happening.

naasking 9y ago
> She literally sent me a screed about how I was an idiot and the mortality rate for people who do this type of thing is much higher. What was her evidence?
- e40 9y ago
  She claimed "studies" showed this. Honestly, I called Kaiser immediately and requested a new PCP and didn't really care to delve into it. I wasn't doing it because I'm a hypochondriac, I had a genuine interest in minimizing (in a healthy way) my blood sugar (she completely ignore that part of my request).
didgeoridoo 9y ago
Well, to be fair, the life expectancy of people who check their blood sugar multiple times per day IS substantially lower. Because these people are generally diabetic.
gumby 9y ago
> I wanted to do blood sugar tests after each meal and throughout the day to see how my food intake (or lack thereof, since I do IF) would impact my blood sugar...I realize I can just go to CVS and buy the tools to do it, but I do find all the options overwhelming and haven't had time to do the research. I'll save you the work. Do go to CVS, buy the cheap cvS branded meter, a single box of strips, a single box of lancets and one lancing device if it doesn't come with the cheap meter. This is probably all you'll ever need. Then go buy an abbott Freestyle Libre meter from France, Italy or a UK mail order pharmacy. This will measure your glucose continuously for a couple of weeks via a disposable patch; you can collect the data with an android phone. Transdermal glucose is different from circulatory glucose, so the point of the regular kit is to normalize the transdermal readings with the actual BG levels. Since you're not actually trying to keep yourself alive (as I am) you could skip this and simply look at the shape of the curve. The other thing to do is log your sleep, excercise, diet (with something like MyFitnessPal that tracks your macros if you get the paid version) and stress levels. Then you can correlate glucose modulation with these exogenous factors. You have to get your meter and consumables (patches) from the countries I listed (not, say, germany which requires a prescription). The device has been recently approved in the US but Abbott set it up so in the US the patches only last 10 days instead of two weeks and can only be read by a physician.

mrfusion 9y ago

I was reading that insulin response is more important than glycemic for storing fat. And surprisingly they’re not that correlated.

didgeoridoo 9y ago
To clarify, glycemic and insulinemic response are correlated over time (i.e. a glycemic response is highly predictive of a corresponding insulinemic response), but the relative scale between the responses varies between individuals. Higher insulin response for a given level of blood glucose can be a sign of insulin resistance, which is associated with fat storing — and a long list of other very nasty metabolic outcomes.
- mrfusion 9y ago
  What I meant is that “certain foods (e.g., lean meats and proteins) cause an insulin response despite there being no carbohydrates present, and some foods cause a disproportionate insulin response relative to their carbohydrate load.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index
- mrfusion 9y ago
  Actually here’s the article and the main take away “With the insulin index, it was realized that only 23% of the variability of insulin response depends on the glucose.” https://idmprogram.com/insulin-index/ https://idmprogram.com/insulin-index/