The 53-year-old Lao Liu told me a few days ago that recently he found that he was always very sleepy after lunch, and wanted to sleep after eating, and asked me if it had something to do with the heat in summer. I asked him if he was very hungry before a meal, or not long after a meal, and he said it was quite common.

I understood it all at once, and told him to go to the hospital for a glucose tolerance test to check the postprandial blood sugar. Sure enough, Lao Liu’s glucose tolerance was abnormal. One hour after the meal, the blood sugar exceeded 15mmol/L, and two hours after the meal, the Exceeded 12mmol/L, it did not return to normal until 3 hours.

Now it became clear that Lao Liu did have high blood sugar or even diabetes.

Have you ever wanted to go to sleep after a meal and then got hungry soon after eating? These situations that we may be accustomed to are actually abnormal, and are likely to be physiological reactions caused by high blood sugar in the body or violent fluctuations in blood sugar.

According to the survey, one out of every three adults in China has high blood sugar, and if they are in a state of high blood sugar for a long time, they may gradually develop into diabetes. Is it too late to start paying attention to blood sugar from now on? Where should I start? Here we will take you to understand the blood sugar in the body from the basics!

Why does blood sugar fluctuate? Generally, the difference between the blood sugar level of normal people is less than 3.33

Blood sugar refers to the amount of glucose in the blood. After the human body eats, foods rich in carbohydrates or sugars are digested and decomposed into small molecules of glucose, which are transported to all parts of the body through the blood to provide energy for the whole body.

Blood sugar needs the help of insulin to transport glucose into muscles and cells for utilization and storage. Therefore, when more sugars are eaten and the blood sugar level is higher, more insulin is needed to help maintain blood sugar constant.

Although blood sugar will fluctuate, it will fall between 3.9 and 7.8 mmol/L more than 90% of the time under normal circumstances because of the help of insulin to stabilize.

Although it is a normal value between 3.9-7.8mmol/L, in fact, the blood sugar is relatively stable, and there is no large gap easily. Generally, the difference between the blood sugar level of normal people will be within 3.33mmol/L, beyond this range It also indicates a certain risk of blood sugar fluctuations.

What are the factors that affect blood sugar fluctuations?

Blood sugar fluctuates with our diet, exercise, and daily routine. The following are common reasons for fluctuations:

1. Eat foods rich in sugar

When sugary foods are digested, glucose is broken down, which is the most direct cause of the rise in blood sugar. Among the six categories of food, carbohydrates, fruits and dairy products are the most important sugars. The more refined sugars, the easier it is to be absorbed by the body because a lot of dietary fiber is lost during processing or cooking. , make blood sugar rise rapidly. Common refined sugars include white rice, white bread, porridge, noodles, fruit juice, and sugar-sweetened beverages.

2. High pressure environment

When we feel stressed, adrenaline releases the stress hormone, hydrocortisone, which increases blood sugar and blood pressure, giving us enough energy to face the stress, and insulin helps blood sugar drop when the stress is relieved. Therefore, if you are often in a high-pressure environment, blood sugar is more likely to fluctuate.

3. Poor sleep quality

Poor sleep will stimulate the activation of the sympathetic nerves, resulting in an increase in adrenaline secretion and a rise in blood sugar. If you often feel that you are not easy to fall asleep, you still feel very tired when you wake up, or it is difficult to fall back asleep after waking up halfway through, you may belong to people with poor sleep quality. In addition to sleep quality, sleep time is also related to diabetes. It is best to maintain 6-8 hours of sleep a day. Too little or too much will increase the risk of diabetes.

4. During exercise

When exercising, the body needs more energy, so the glycogen stored in the muscles and the liver will be broken down into glucose to provide the body’s needs, so the blood sugar is prone to fluctuate during exercise. But in the long run, exercise can help the body use insulin effectively, improve the efficiency of glucose utilization, and can help reduce overall blood sugar performance.

The effect of blood sugar fluctuations on the body

The fluctuation of blood sugar is not easy to observe, but if you often want to sleep after eating, eat quickly, and feel hungry after eating, it may be that your body has just experienced a relatively large blood sugar fluctuation!

Too much blood sugar fluctuation can easily cause oxidative stress and inflammatory stimulation of blood vessels, cause damage to vascular endothelial cells, and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, eye disease, kidney disease and other diseases. Therefore, although blood sugar will fluctuate, we should try our best to avoid raising blood sugar too much in a short period of time to reduce the damage to the body caused by large fluctuations in blood sugar.

Who needs to start monitoring blood sugar early?

In fact, no matter the age, anyone may have the problem of high blood sugar, and the current incidence of the disease is getting younger and younger, so if there is one of the following people, it is recommended to pay extra attention to the blood sugar status:

1. Overweight: BMI>=24

2. Excessive body fat: boys > 25%; girls > 30%

3. Family history of diabetes

4. Long-term high pressure environment

5, low activity, or long-term inactivity

How do I know my current blood sugar status? Methods for monitoring blood sugar vary

Medical report

Fasting blood sugar, which is common in general health checks, is the most common blood sugar test item that everyone comes into contact with. If the fasting blood sugar value exceeds 7mmol/L, it is considered diabetes. Therefore, if the fasting blood sugar is found to be greater than 6mmol/L, it may be in the state of pre-diabetes. High risk of developing diabetes in the future.

Therefore, it is recommended that in addition to going to the endocrinology department for further examinations, we should also start to review the current living habits and diet content to find out the problem and make adjustments.

However, fasting blood sugar cannot fully understand people’s blood sugar. Some diabetic patients may have fasting blood sugar in the normal range, but postprandial blood sugar has exceeded the standard. This requires people not to simply check fasting blood sugar, but also to check postprandial blood sugar, or to conduct sugar tests. Tolerance testing.

blood glucose meter

A blood glucose meter is a blood glucose monitoring tool that you can purchase by yourself. You can test it at home, collect blood from your fingertips, and measure your blood glucose value at a specific time point. Under normal circumstances, the blood sugar measured before getting up in the morning and before eating should be less than 6mmol/L, and should not exceed 11.1mmol/L at any time.

It should be noted that there is a certain error in the blood glucose value measured by the blood glucose meter. Generally, the allowable error rate of the blood glucose meter is 15%, so the value of the blood glucose meter is more used for self-monitoring and cannot be used for diagnosis. In addition, choose a big brand blood glucose meter, because there are many users, the numerical adjustment is better, and the accuracy rate is higher.

continuous blood glucose monitoring

In addition to the blood glucose meter that can be checked by yourself, there is also a new technology - continuous blood glucose monitoring, which can monitor the blood sugar status 24 hours a day without interruption, and display the blood sugar value of the whole day into a curve.

In addition to measuring fasting blood sugar, continuous blood glucose monitoring can clearly see the rise and fall of blood sugar after eating. It is a convenient tool for people who want to understand their blood sugar fluctuations.

However, there are two types of this product: medical and civilian. There is a gap between the two in terms of accuracy, but it is not large. The main purpose is to install a small device in the limbs to understand the blood sugar fluctuations by monitoring the blood sugar in the interstitial fluid, because It is not blood, there is a problem of value adjustment, and there may be a big gap with fingertip blood sugar. You can get more accurate values ​​by choosing a suitable brand. In addition, the blood sugar of the interstitial fluid is generally 5-10 minutes later than the blood sugar of the fingertip.

Many people think that diabetes can only be acquired by the elderly or congenital, but in fact, more than 90% of diabetic patients are caused by acquired habits. Therefore, regardless of whether they belong to a high-risk group, they should start to pay attention to their blood sugar as soon as possible. In order to avoid the occurrence of chronic diseases!