Understanding Blood Glucose: A Compass for Successful Type 1 diabetes Management | T1D Nutrition

🕵️‍♀️In today's post, I will uncover two fundamental aspects you need to understand about Blood Glucose!

This post continues from an earlier post which unveiled the 3 Key Elements to Successful T1D Management: Blood Glucose, Insulin, and Food.

Today, let's delve into the first key element - Blood Glucose!

I will outline what you need to know about blood glucose which will help you improve your Type 1 diabetes management.

Living with Type 1 diabetes feels like a perpetual tightrope walk, and at the heart of this delicate performance lies the intricate choreography of blood glucose management. As parents navigating this journey with children diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, we are tasked with orchestrating this intricate and delicate balance.

👉 Here are the two fundamental aspects you need to understand about Blood Glucose:

1️⃣ Understanding Blood Glucose Targets:

• it's important to understand the range the body naturally maintains for blood glucose levels. This range becomes your target, the goal you're striving to attain.
• The World Health Organization (WHO) defines normal fasting blood glucose within 70-100mg/dl (3.9 – 5.6mmol/l). In the broader context, the body aims to keep blood glucose levels within the tight range of 4.0 to 6.0 mmol/l or roughly 72 to 108 mg/dl.
• The body's goal in maintaining blood glucose in this tight range is with the goal to maintain optimal health and normal bodily functions. Deviations from this range, particularly prolonged elevated levels, can disrupt homeostasis and lead to health complications.

2️⃣ Unveiling Factors that Impact Blood Glucose Levels:

• Understanding what impacts blood glucose levels and to what extent you have control over these factors is key to identifying excursions and fluctuations.
• A variety of factors influence blood glucose levels, ranging from growth, exercise, and acute stress to infection, dehydration, dawn phenomenon, cortisol awakening response, temperature changes, menstruation cycles, and even sunburns.
• While some factors have minimal impact, others can significantly affect blood glucose levels.
• The degree of control varies among these factors. Food, however, stands out as the factor with the greatest impact, and fortunately, it's also the one you have the most control over.

Now armed with the knowledge of what influences blood glucose levels the most and where your control lies, you can strategize effectively for managing Type 1 diabetes. Achieving the goal of attaining blood glucose levels as close to physiologically normal as possible becomes a tangible reality.

In the maze of Type 1 diabetes management, where calculations and technology sometimes lead to over complication and overwhelm, understanding these fundamentals provides a compass to steer you back to what you can control and improve.

By understanding your blood glucose target and the reasons behind it, as well as identifying the factors with the greatest impact, over which you have the most control, you can devise an appropriate strategy.

The starting point for successful management is a tailored nutrition strategy, a Therapeutic Carbohydrate Reduction/Low-carb nutrition strategy, which we'll delve into in Key Element #3. Food!

Every meal becomes a chain reaction, influencing blood glucose fluctuations, determining the insulin dose, and impacting your child's overall health.

Last night's dinner, Parmesan Chicken with a vegetable medley, hopefully provides you with an example of a mindful approach to food, aiming to minimize blood glucose impact while nourishing a growing body.

Recipe: https://joyfilledeats.com/baked-chicken-parmesan/

Returning to basics with easy, nutritious, and tasty meals, while focusing on your child's medical condition, helps improve your child's outcomes, ensures their growth and development, and provides you with clarity and peace of mind as a parent!

In my parent group, within the Nutrition Effect program, we discuss what specifically impacts your child’s blood glucose levels, which may be unique to your child, and try to devise strategies on how to best anticipate and manage, such as the Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR) which affects my son most mornings!

Feel free to reach out with any questions about blood glucose!

👉 For more information and help, please don't hesitate to message me, or visit:
https://www.t1dnutrition.com/

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REFERENCES:
WHO: World Health Organization (2023). Mean fasting blood glucose. In The Global Health Observatory. https://www.who.int/.../indicator.../imr-details/2380

Mathew TK, Zubair M, Tadi P. Blood Glucose Monitoring. 2023 Apr 23. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2023 Jan–. PMID: 32310436. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32310436/