Poor Diabetes Advice: Corn Flakes

Obviously diabetics are largely carb intolerant and should be eating lower GI food and would benefit from replacing some carbs with healthy fats and protein. In the evening this is especially true but the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK have prescribed cornflakes!

I’ve heard alot of poor to average advice from the NHS regarding diabetes but this latest advice I came across earlier today is just rediculous. A diabetic nurse stated that it is ok for a diabetic to eat the high GI cereal of cornflakes before bed, no reason other than it is quick and simple.

I would be grateful of some comments to back up this problem.

The reason they perscribe carbs late at night is to keep the person from having hypoglycemia in the middle of the night.
Now what are you talking about exactly? Type 1 or Type 2 diabetics?

Type II. The only reason hypo would occur in the night is if the insulin injected has been too great. As the day goes on carb intake and insulin should ideally be tapered down to almost nothing in a way to result in stablised blood sugar through the night.

[quote]Rich Hand wrote:
Type II. The only reason hypo would occur in the night is if the insulin injected has been too great. As the day goes on carb intake and insulin should ideally be tapered down to almost nothing in a way to result in stablised blood sugar through the night.[/quote]

That may work for type II diabetics who are on insulin, though most are not on insulin injections. This all also depends on activity level as well.

As for type I diabetics who need to take both long acting and short acting insulin it is generally a good idea to go to sleep on some carbs to avoid a low in the middle of the night as the long acting insulin will use thos carbs.

I don’t eat cereal myself in any case and I generally only need about 10-15 carbs to sleep on along with .5 units of insulin to keep my blood sugar from crashing or getting too high while I sleep.

The diabetic in question is type II with injections. Your own dietary control makes sense.

Much of the advice from the leading authors on here would be to replace carbs for healthy fast and pros which would allow for greatly reduced insulin injections even for many type I’s.

Ronda,

I think my situation is a little on subject here. I feel like I am having more and more problems dealing with my overnight blood sugars, specifically going hyerglycemic, if I eat high GI food like grain-based products or a large meal fairly soon beforehand.

My body seems like it just produces more glucose from high GI food as I am getting out of my youth, specifically when I sleep. The sleeping is the key part here, strange things occur at night in our malfunctioning bodies… =O

A little of it can be corrected with insulin, but I feel like I am more suspectible to overnight hyperglycemia now than I was for hypoglycemia when I was younger and it has gotten to be a noticeable problem.

Whereas when I was younger I worried about hypoglycemia far more often despite eating just as much. It is especially true that if I wake up with ok blood sugar (70-180 mg/dL) and do not immediately take insulin that I will quickly go hyperglycemic (200+ mg/dL) by just being awakened.

The problem has just seem to get harder to deal with the past few years…

There is research emerging though on type 1 diabetes progression and how the destruction of your insulin-producing beta cells effects other cell networks. And especially how over time things change. Without getting into too much science & speculation, I can say that fortunately drugs are coming out that should hopefully help us with these problems.

That is good too because I am getting tired of overnight and morning hyperglycemia and the resulting symptoms!

Plus I want to be able to eat some carbs before bed and not have to worry so much about it!

If you want to consider the type 2 diabetic, there really isn’t anything good to suggest to them if they are at the point where they have to take so much insulin that they have to worry about eating extra food just before bed to compensate for the large amounts of insulin they administer in the evening.

Everything about that situation just speaks obesity, poor lifestyle decisions and poor doctors to me…

These persons need prescribed a diet of exercise and healthy eating more than insulin. In this way they should not be concerned with eating to protect themselves from hypoglycemia overnight.

My dad is type 2 and he was telling me the other day that he keeps a jug of OJ in the fridge in the master bathroom because sometimes he is hypo at night. He does not shoot insulin though. Is his diet causing this?

[quote]Rusty Barbell wrote:

Whereas when I was younger I worried about hypoglycemia far more often despite eating just as much. It is especially true that if I wake up with ok blood sugar (70-180 mg/dL) and do not immediately take insulin that I will quickly go hyperglycemic (200+ mg/dL) by just being awakened.

There is research emerging though on type 1 diabetes progression and how the destruction of your insulin-producing beta cells effects other cell networks. And especially how over time things change. Without getting into too much science & speculation, I can say that fortunately drugs are coming out that should hopefully help us with these problems.

[/quote]

I have the same type of thing, except w/ over nights, or at least that much with overnights.

If I don’t eat first thing in the morning and take insulin then my blood sugar then I go into hypergylcemia. Late in the afternoon I also need to eat and take insulin to combat hyperglycemia… it’s really annoying.
I am getting a pump soon and I hear these problems will end, yay!

I look forward to the new drugs :slight_smile:

[quote]Rusty Barbell wrote:
If you want to consider the type 2 diabetic, there really isn’t anything good to suggest to them if they are at the point where they have to take so much insulin that they have to worry about eating extra food just before bed to compensate for the large amounts of insulin they administer in the evening.

Everything about that situation just speaks obesity, poor lifestyle decisions and poor doctors to me…

These persons need prescribed a diet of exercise and healthy eating more than insulin. In this way they should not be concerned with eating to protect themselves from hypoglycemia overnight.[/quote]

Agree

[quote]analog_kid wrote:
My dad is type 2 and he was telling me the other day that he keeps a jug of OJ in the fridge in the master bathroom because sometimes he is hypo at night. He does not shoot insulin though. Is his diet causing this?

[/quote]

As long as he is consuming enough calories then it would probably be the insulin that is causing it as in Rusty B’s post.

Rondastarr have you never tried eating as Berardi or Poliquin advise, ie. eat as we evolved to, grass fed meat, berries, nuts, greens etc. and reduced carbs, somewhere in between a healthy Atkins and the Zone diet?

[quote]Rich Hand wrote:
Rondastarr have you never tried eating as Beradi or Poliquin advise, ie. eat as we evolved to, grass fed meat, berries, nuts, greens etc. and reduced carbs, somewhere in between a healthy Atkins and the Zone diet? [/quote]

Stuff like that doesn’t work when you take both long and short acting insulin. I need the carbs to keep from getting highs and to keep from getting lows. Type 1 and Type 2 are different. Once I get an insulin pump I hope to cut out a good bit of carbs though. As it is I eat the least amount of carbs possible to me to maintain my blood glucose at teh activity level I am at.

Ah what the heck I erased my first post because I went back and read it and decided it was too off topic… blah… whatever

analog_kid if he is on a non-insulin treatment such as a sulfonylurea, which works to increase your body’s natural insulin production, then this may be his reason for going hypo.

I am sure diabetics can still do well on the zone diet tapering off to atkins in the evening so long as they can adjust their insulin effectively but then control over insulin is often the problem. In my dads case he can but doesnt.

[quote]Rich Hand wrote:
I am sure diabetics can still do well on the zone diet tapering off to atkins in the evening so long as they can adjust their insulin effectively but then control over insulin is often the problem. In my dads case he can but doesnt.[/quote]

Yes, I’m sure type II diabetics can…

[quote]rondastarr wrote:
Rich Hand wrote:
I am sure diabetics can still do well on the zone diet tapering off to atkins in the evening so long as they can adjust their insulin effectively but then control over insulin is often the problem. In my dads case he can but doesnt.

Yes, I’m sure type II diabetics can…[/quote]

Don’t you hate how people don’t realise that Type 1 and Type 2 are completely different?

Yea it’s a bit confusing. It be nice if there were separate names for T1D and T2D but I guess this is just the way the cards fell. People like the name diabetes I guess heh…

[quote]WhiteTiger711 wrote:
rondastarr wrote:
Rich Hand wrote:
I am sure diabetics can still do well on the zone diet tapering off to atkins in the evening so long as they can adjust their insulin effectively but then control over insulin is often the problem. In my dads case he can but doesnt.

Yes, I’m sure type II diabetics can…

Don’t you hate how people don’t realise that Type 1 and Type 2 are completely different?[/quote]

They arent completely different but differ significantly regards the amount of insulin secreted. BUT I agree I should have listed as type II and not generalised.

[quote]Rich Hand wrote:
WhiteTiger711 wrote:
rondastarr wrote:
Rich Hand wrote:
I am sure diabetics can still do well on the zone diet tapering off to atkins in the evening so long as they can adjust their insulin effectively but then control over insulin is often the problem. In my dads case he can but doesnt.

Yes, I’m sure type II diabetics can…

Don’t you hate how people don’t realise that Type 1 and Type 2 are completely different?

They arent completely different but differ significantly regards the amount of insulin secreted. BUT I agree I should have listed as type II and not generalised.

[/quote]

If by “amount of insulin secreted” you mean NONE, and any at all then ide say they are completly different. Type 1’s don’t produce insulin unless honeymooning whereas Type 2’s are just “resistant” to it.