A month ago I wrote about how something odd (and by ‘odd’, I meant ‘good’) happened to my morning blood sugar measurements and I now have more data to share.
Normal fasting blood sugar measurements of a non-diabetic are traditionally in the 70 – 100 mg/dL range and as a Type 2 Diabetic who is controlling his blood sugar levels with the Paleo diet, I saw my morning blood sugar measurements average in the high-normal range (90 – 100) from September 2013 until May 2014. But something strange happened in June that caused my morning blood sugar measurements to plunge into the low to mid range (70-85).
At that time I didn’t know what caused this unexpected improvement but this phenomenon coincided with me stopping my daily multivitamins so I decided to perform an experiment.
For approximately 3 weeks (when I stopped taking my multivitamins) I experienced these lower than expected blood sugar measurements so I decided to restart the daily multivitamins for that same time period and compare the measurements to see if the multivitamins were the cause of this drastic change.
In case you didn’t read the earlier post, here is a graph of my morning blood sugar measurements over the past 10 months and you can see the significant step down in measurements over the past 6 weeks.
Here is a zoomed in graph with lines showing where I stopped taking the multivitamins (between the left and middle red lines) and when I restarted the multivitamins (between the middle and right red lines).
Here a graph of just the last 6 weeks when I was performing this trial without the lines delineating the time periods.
For the statistically inclined – When I wasn’t taking the multivitamins, my average morning blood sugar measurement was 81.25 with a standard deviation of 7.24 and when I was taking the multivitamins my average was 85.70 with a standard deviation of 9.11.
So you might say there was a slight improvement when I didn’t take the multivitamin but this experiment wasn’t controlled enough for me to make that claim. My eating and exercise habits were roughly the same but not identical and that might explain the small deltas I saw over this time period.
And both sets of data during this 6 weeks were far better than the prior 7.5 months and the fact that my morning blood sugar measurements didn’t return to the high normal range leads me to believe that something else happened.
I still don’t know what happened but the next phase of my experiment will commence!
cosmoscon 
Interesting, huh?
Can’t wait for your next experiment!
I think, from our standpoint, being on keto since last November just before Thanksgiving, the longer we are on this new lifestyle, the more health we gain. Not sure I told you, but I had psoriasis and it always increased in the winter which is normal. In December the elbows never became psoriatic. And since then as time has gone on, the lesions in my scalp are totally gone. Husband has lost 40 pounds and is off all his meds.
It’s past time for a post for us on this. I’ve been too busy buying ‘Grain Brain’ for my best friends. Hubby’s cardiologist, just this past Wednesday did a double take when he saw him. 😀 He asked how he did this and when I told him he wants a copy of the book. He’s due to receive it this Thursday…
I’ve heard about the ‘Grain Brain’ and I’ll add that to my list. It’s good you have a doc who is open to this information, that is sadly not the norm.
When I started Paleo I got on Rob Wolf’s website, skipped to the what to eat/what not to eat and since that fit in with my low carb diet I blindly tried it. Like you, the more positive results I see from staying on this diet has led me to dive into the science more. I’m reading Wolf’ book ‘The Paleo Solution’ and I recommend that book for you too. The biochemistry is a little over my head right now but with your medical background you would love it.
Great to hear you and your hubby are doing great!
I thought I had replied to you…need more walking to improve my memory.
I will order ‘The Paleo Solution’. I’m actually reading my 6th book on these things right now! Currently reading ‘The Big Fat Surprise’. It’s more a very detailed look at the research behind the fat/heart theory. Instead of just reading the conclusions of the studies, she looks at the actual numbers behind what was reported out. Many times there was important information that went against the theory of dietary saturated fat and heart heath that was glossed over.
Anyway. I put up another post about hubby’s health and weight loss. He’s so happy! And energy is plentiful! He looks like he did when he was in his twenties! I’m not kidding!
I have “The Big Fat Surprise” on my list. I follow the author, Nina Teicholz, on Twitter.
So glad to hear you and your hubby are leading a healthier lifestyle. Congrats to you both!
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