When I look around acne forums I see one type of thread popping again and again.
“What can I do to lower my blood sugar?”
Sometimes they talk about foods that should lower blood sugar levels, sometimes it’s about herbs, and lately even about salt.
Most time the discussion on these threads is so far off the base that it’s almost painful to read. Btw, one reason I don’t recommend these forums is the amount of misinformation being passed around there. Interaction is good, but without solid understanding of health most people get horribly confused there.
Back to the point, and let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this issue.
There’s no need to make blood sugar control more complicated than it is. Your blood sugar levels are affected by two things: input and output. Input is the amount of glucose that goes into your bloodstream and output is the amount that leaves. Quite simple.
For keeping blood sugar levels steady output is far more important than input. I know you’ve probably heard otherwise, but that’s just one more jewel of misinformation.
As long as the output is working well your blood sugar levels remain stable - even if you screw the input with lots of refined sugar.
Output is all about your lifestyle. Burn more calories than you eat (or don’t overeat), exercise, sleep well and keep the fat off your plate.
Do that and your blood sugar levels remain just fine.
For some reason people don’t get this. Confusion about diet is probably one reason. People don’t understand how diet affects insulin resistance. And maybe some people just don’t want to accept the responsibility. It’s always easier to look for herbs and other easy solutions rather than change the way you life your life.
Whatever the reason be, it shows up as confusion in acne forums and keeps acne victims from finding real solutions.
Let’s finish by looking at few examples of the kinds of threads I’ve seen recently.
Which foods lower blood sugar levels?
This question is fundamentally flawed. No food lowers blood sugar levels. Food is all about input, and all foods increase blood sugar levels. But I guess that person meant to ask what he/she could eat to keep blood sugar levels stable. Again, that’s more about output. Just make sure you don’t mess up the output with your diet.
If you are quite not sure how to do that, pick up a copy of Clear for Life and I’ll explain it in detail. It’s something most people wouldn’t figure out on their own. Thanks to the diet ‘advice’ we’ve received from out parents, school and the media.
Cinnamon lowers blood sugar levels!!!
You could just as well replace cinnamon with some other herb. Many herbs mimic the effect of insulin or stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin. So the give the illusion that they lower blood sugar levels.
At the outset it might seem like a good idea to take these herbs to lower your blood sugar levels. But it really isn’t.
See, insulin resistance is again one of those protective mechanisms I talked about in Acne 101. If you have insulin resistance, it’s there for a reason. Cells develop insulin resistance for example when you eat more than you need. It’s a result of over-nutrition, or I should say over-calories.
So when you take these herbs you force the cells to take in more glucose they can use. And perhaps that’s not very smart.
Pancreas also has its limits. If you stimulate it with herbs or drugs at some point it will collapse, and you’ll get type 1 diabetes.
Please remember that herbs are drugs, only made by nature. They medicate but never deal with the real problem.
Salt lowers blood sugar
This was the one theory that got me shaking my head the most.
So some scientists made a study that showed that salt intake lowers blood sugar levels. As this amazing discovery is in the form or scientific study people take this nonsense seriously. And to think of this shows how badly people misunderstand the function of blood sugar.
It’s like the fuel tank in your car. When your cells need fuel they take glucose from the bloodstream. When they don’t need it, they don’t take it. It’s really that simple. And to think that salt somehow makes the cells more ‘hungry’ is just absurd.
But what about the study? It showed that salt lowers blood sugar levels. That’s a scientific fact.
Yes, it’s possible that the study showed that. But blood sugar level is measured as concentration of glucose in a particular volume of blood. You can lower blood sugar levels two ways: by reducing the amount of glucose or increasing the volume of blood.
What happens when you eat salt? You get thirsty.
Salt is extremely poisonous to life. It kills all life - and that includes you also (I’ll get to your objection soon, just hold on). For the body to cope with the salt you eat, it must dilute it. The solution to pollution is dilution. That’s why you get thirsty. And if you don’t drink water it’s going to pull it out of your cells and cause dehydration.
So, if after eating salt your blood volume increases by 1 liter because of the water your drink and gets pulled from your cells, of course your blood sugar levels will be ‘lower’. But it’s just an illusion. You still have the same amount of glucose in the blood. So no real progress was made. In fact you wrecked your health by eating poison.
I know that by this time someone is just dying to object. Saying that salt is essential to us. That it’s only harmful in large quantities. The flawed reasoning goes that everything is dangerous in excessive quantities - even water.
Of course the difference is that no matter how little salt you take it’s going to cause an adverse reaction. But the body can deal with it in small quantities. Water causes no adverse reaction in normal quantities. And the lethal dose of salt is not very much. The average American eat 1/8th of it every day. So it’s not very difficult to eat a lethal dose of salt almost by accident. But for you to kill yourself by drinking too much water?
I trust that you understand the difference.
Again, I have to stress that there are no secrets of shortcuts to clear skin and happiness. Every such shortcut you take is just going to make the matters worse in the long run.
Just eat healthy, respect the way your body works and be merry. That’s the ’secret’.
And of course buy Clear for Life, and all your problems will be magically solved for this and all your future lives to come : )
September 17th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
when i first read that fluctuation in blood sugar levels could cause acne, i really started to pay attention to how much refined sugar i was eating, to the point that i completely cut it out of my diet. as a result of this i felt a noticible loss of energy, probably because my body didnt have as much as it needed to turn into energy. i am just wondering if this is a good idea to cut out sugar completely, or if it really doesnt matter that much, since you focus on output rather than input in this article.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:06 am
Hi there, eat vegetables or high fibre foods and your organs automically regulate the blood sugar level to a beautiful nice level. No highly processed or refined foods like smash potatoes, chips, polished rice etc., if you eat potatoes eat the skin as well for the fibre in the skin otherwise leave the potato alone.. All the fibre foods and vegetables that you eat will provide sugar at a steady staggered amount into your blood stream and your blood sugar level will be fine tuned. In fact your diet will be quite smiliar to a diabetic patient’s diet except that you are at liberty to eat some of the forbidden foods now and again without causing big damage ( eat small amount though). Depend on how the meats are cooked you can eat some without causing damage to your already bad acne. Deep fried chicken like kentucky will be a sin for you to eat, it will be very unforgiving to your skin. Boiled or steamed meat without much oil will be quite ok for you but control the amount you eat. Just don’t over stuffed yourself with it. Keep on reading about foods & soon Seppo will be out of business. Cheers.. ( in old days priests sold penance chits, all sins forgiven if you bought those chits, they had different one for different sin and you pay more for fornication penance chit)
September 18th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Kimberly,
It depends what you ate instead of sugar. Low energy could be because of too few calories.
I don’t think sugar is as bad as it’s made out to be. Blood sugar issues are more about output anyway.
Still, I would not recommend eating refined sugar. It’s definitely not healthy. You need sugar and carbs but not the refined crap. Go for fruits and vegetables instead.
September 18th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Louis,
Good points.
Unfortunately for me I’m not as crooked as the priests in the old days. So can’t keep making up new rules all the way. Luckily for me Amazon has 300,000 diet books, and that guarantees people will remain confused : )
Jokes aside, keep reading and studying. That’s the only way to get to the bottom of this.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:04 am
‘As long as the output is working well your blood sugar levels remain stable - even if you screw the input with lots of refined sugar.
Output is all about your lifestyle. Burn more calories than you eat (or don’t overeat), exercise, sleep well and keep the fat off your plate.’
Dear Seppo, while I appreciate your struggle to clear up acne-related misconceptions, I find the above statement a tad bit unclear and subjected to error. First of all, I feel that the first statement contradicts the fact that ‘we are what we eat’. The reason is that I find it incorrect to advocate eating whatever sugar one desires and then just do some exercise, sleep more than 6 hours and reduce the fat. I just don’t know why it is always the fat that gets the blame. Quite frankly, most foods that in the long run trigger acne are from the carbohydrate group…
Just my two cents,
David : )
September 19th, 2008 at 5:30 am
David,
I think I made a small error in communication. I should have said that if you occasionally screw the output with refined sugar.
I most certainly don’t advocate going willy-nilly on refined sugar. Preferably one shouldn’t eat it at all.
My aim is just to get people get rid of their fruit phobia. We’ve been taught that sugar is evil and hence people avoid fruit like plaque.
And if you avoid fruit you are bound to replace it something far worse; grains, fat or meat usually.
Fat gets the blame because it deserves it. Without excessive fat fruit and most sugars won’t upset your blood sugar levels. Fruit gets blamed for the sins of fat.
Yes you are correct that many trigger foods are carbs. But often they do so because of excessive fat consumption. Of course allergies and sensitivities (such as gluten) are a different thing.
September 20th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
what exactly do you mean by “output”, when talking about blood sugar levels?
September 21st, 2008 at 7:29 am
Harvey,
Output is the transfer of glucose from the bloodstream to your cells.
September 29th, 2008 at 8:46 am
[…] a recent blood sugar post I mentioned that blood sugar metabolism problems are an issue of output. Meaning the glucose […]
October 1st, 2008 at 12:54 am
I know you say it’s good to get sun…but what about for the body…does the body need sun or is it the same if you face gets it…
October 1st, 2008 at 8:46 am
Josh,
The more your body is exposed to sun the more of the benefits you get. Face and eyes are important from sleep point of view but if I remember correctly other parts of the body produce vitamin D faster than the skin on the face.
That is, if I remember correctly.
October 3rd, 2008 at 8:13 pm
thanks again for the feedback…i had a few other questions….
1. You say it’s not good to mix certain foods…i.e. meats with grains but i wanted to know how long do i wait for digestion among each of the food groups - fruits, vegs, etc. before eating another type?
2. i read in your tips for the weekend…that low-carb diets are in the long term bad for you..so are you saying it’s ok to eat organic grains.
3. lastly beside intake i wanted to know what you use for toiletry stuff, if one brand is better than the others…i’ve use pretty much everything organic to soaps, shampoos, and toothpaste i still don’t know if they have an organic detergent or clothes cleaner?
sorry it’s alot of questions but i just didn’t want to keep commenting…thanks again your tips and literature has really helped…
December 11th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
[…] problem with the theory behind low-carb diet is that it over simplifies things. In the Blood sugar worries blog post I explained the concept of input and […]