Do You Actually Need to Fear About Blood Sugar Spikes if You Do not Have Diabetes?

Folks with diabetes want to observe their blood sugar ranges, as spikes and drops can have harmful well being results. However just lately, folks with out diabetes have turn into obsessive about managing their blood sugar.

On social media, customers blame blood sugar spikes for various points, like weight acquire and poor sleep. Some have even began monitoring their ranges with steady glucose screens (CGM), gadgets that stick below your pores and skin and measure your blood sugar in actual time.

However for those who don’t have diabetes, do you actually need to observe your blood sugar? Right here’s what specialists say.

Blood sugar, or glucose, is the principle sugar present in blood and the physique’s major supply of power. Your physique breaks down the carbohydrates you eat into glucose, then releases it into your bloodstream. That’s why blood sugar spikes after meals—particularly after consuming meals excessive in added sugar, like desserts and sugary drinks.

Nevertheless, meals isn’t the one factor that may spike blood glucose. Some stunning triggers embody:

An absence of sleep
Sunburns
Espresso (even with out sweetener)
The time of day
Dehydration

When your blood sugar is excessive, your pancreas releases insulin to convey it down. Having an excessive amount of glucose in your blood for an prolonged time frame can result in insulin resistance, when your cells cease responding to insulin. This makes your blood sugar keep excessive, elevating your danger of kind 2 diabetes.

Specialists agreed that, typically, folks with out diabetes don’t want to observe their glucose ranges.

Whereas frequent spikes aren’t supreme, it’s OK for blood sugar to go up a bit after you eat, and fluctuating blood glucose is totally regular inside a sure vary. In a 2019 examine, the blood sugar of nondiabetic, wholesome folks went exterior the traditional vary (70 to 140 mg/dL) round 4% of the time, or about an hour every day.

“Your physique is definitely superb at controlling glucose in regular ranges,” Solar Kim, MD, an affiliate professor within the division of endocrinology on the Stanford College Faculty of Drugs, advised Well being. “To obsess about small rises in glucose is unfair.”

“There’s numerous pushing for [CGMs] on social media,” Kim added, “however not everybody must put on this.”

Raimund Herzog, MD, an endocrinologist on the Yale Drugs Diabetes Middle and affiliate professor at Yale Faculty of Drugs, agreed that continuously monitoring glucose with a CGM could make wholesome folks fear unnecessarily that one thing is improper, “when actually, every little thing is completely regular.”

Additionally, since CGMs have been initially designed for folks with diabetes, the readings could possibly be skewed for these with out the situation. “The accuracy of the sensors continues to be restricted, significantly in wholesome individuals who wouldn’t have diabetes,” Herzog advised Well being.

Even when the readings are correct, blood sugar is just one metric, Kim mentioned. If a meals doesn’t spike your blood sugar, it doesn’t imply it’s routinely wholesome.

“In case you have a well-functioning pancreas, you may have the ability to eat a cookie and your glucose could not spike, however that doesn’t imply it’s good for you,” she defined.

Slightly than monitoring blood sugar, Herzog mentioned folks ought to intention to eat an total nutritious diet wealthy in fiber, plant-based meals, and lean proteins—all of which naturally assist management blood glucose. 

The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention additionally counsel:

Getting common bodily activityMaintaining a wholesome weightEating at common timesDrinking water as an alternative of juice or sodaChoosing fruit over processed treats with added sugar

Herzog mentioned CGMs may be useful for folks recognized with prediabetes, when blood glucose ranges are larger than regular however not sufficient to be known as diabetes. CGMs may help this group acknowledge and enhance their blood sugar ranges to forestall the event of kind 2 diabetes.

For everybody else, CGMs are doubtless not going to be price the price, Herzog mentioned.

“I all the time say, ‘Go forward and take a look at it,’” Kim added. “However whether or not somebody must obsess about their spikes or pay for a service to trace this, we don’t have any information that exhibits that’s helpful.”