One of the things that most surprised me when I was diagnosed as a diabetic is that I could go to bed with a low blood sugar and wake up with a high blood sugar. What’s going on?
There are several things that can be going on to cause this:
Late night carb snack: Your digestion slows at night so if you were eating a lot of carbs late at night, you can be seeing the impact of this in the morning : an inexplicable rise in blood sugar between 2am and 8am caused by the liver dumping glucose into your bloodstream Sleep apnea: Is your heart racing when you wake up? It could be you were woken up because you have sleep apnea. When you stop breathing, all sorts of things happen to wake you up, including raising your blood sugar. Over active liver: Your liver is producing more glucose than your body can handle due to insulin resistance and insufficient insulin. This is what diabetes is all about and why diabetics have higher fasting blood sugar than normal people… because insulin resistance in the liver impairs suppression of gluconeogenesis which means you are over-producing glucose. So you have a double trouble perfect storm: your over produces glucose because your body thinks it is starving and your pancreas under producesinsulin. Metformin and high intensity interval training (HIIT) can help counter this effect by reducing your insulin resistance. Eating too many carbs during the day: If you load up your glucose stores during the day by eating too many carbs, that can turn around and bite you at night. The way I get to super low fasting glucose levels is by strictly limiting my carb intake during the day. Any cheating will come around and bite you with a higher fasting glucose level.
