A keto diet plan mainly concentrates on the carbohydrate intake of a person so that they can have the pleasures of weight loss and other health benefits. But there is a significant thing that is also affected by lower carbs consumption in the diet: the blood sugar levels as they correlate in the body. In this article, we will learn about low blood sugar keto.
Usually, lowering the higher blood sugar levels in the body is also a benefit of the keto diet, but what about the low blood sugar levels, which are people experience in their diet plan. So, this article will give you exposure to everything related to low blood sugar levels.
What are Blood Sugar Levels?
Blood sugar levels measure the amount of glucose in your blood. The glucose sugar that the blood contains and carries to every part of the body for energy purposes. A person has to maintain its blood sugar levels as if they have a higher concentration. Therefore, it increases the risks of diabetes and heart disease and contributes to other problems such as hypertension, obesity, etc. The average blood sugar levels are between 70 to 130 mg/dl, and the value also depends upon the time you ate the last meal.
Bloss sugar levels are essential to maintain as it is linked to the entire body, which means that if it gets higher or affected, the whole body has to go through a difficult time. More overly, if you have high blood sugar levels due to a certain condition, you can quickly recover from them by adopting a healthy lifestyle, a low-carb diet plan, or whatever specific details your doctor or nutritionists recommend you.
How Carbohydrates Influence Blood Sugar Levels
When a person consumes a carb-containing meal, the digestive enzymes and acids break down the macronutrient into simpler sugar, commonly known as glucose, which then enters the bloodstream and carries it throughout the body as an energy fuel. Insulin is a hormone that maintains the concentration of glucose sugar in the body by signaling different organs and cells to take in glucose for energy. When the requirement is fulfilled, the insulin triggers the liver to store the extra glucose as glycogen. In this way, the blood sugar levels spikes to a higher level do not occur.
So, this whole mechanism tells us that carbohydrates are the primary influence on the blood sugar levels, that it is a factor that controls the blood sugar levels, whether causing them to rise or fall. If a person consumes more carbohydrates than their body needs, it can cause higher blood sugar levels, eventually resulting in diabetes. On the other hand, if they take less than they require, it can result in low blood sugar levels.
What is the Good Blood Sugar Level on the Keto Diet?
When you do a keto diet, the energy source changes from glucose sugar to ketones as the carbs are reduced, and fats are increased. So, now there are ketone molecules in the blood rather than sugar molecules. So, the average blood ketone levels are between 1.5 to 3.0 mmol/l. However, the blood sugar levels also should not be reduced to 70 mg/dl in the blood, as mentioned by the American diabetic association. If these ketone and blood sugar levels are in the controlled ranges, nothing to be stressed about.
Hypoglycemia and Keto Diet
Hypoglycemia is a condition that occurs when your low blood sugar levels in the blood, it causes due to a lack of glucose sugars in the body that is not fulfilling the requirement of energy. A person can feel various symptoms such as:
- Weakness
- Dizziness
- Hunger
- Stress
- Confusion
- Irritability
- Sweating
- Tiredness
The keto diet is a plan in which you consume meals high in fats and extremely low in carbs, only 5 to 10 % carbohydrates per day. Some people can experience hypoglycemia during the keto diet until the body gets adapted to the transition from glucose metabolism to ketosis. Once the body gets comfortable with ketones as the energy source for the body, hypoglycemia will be treated.
How do You Prevent Hypoglycemia on Keto?
Following are some of the ways that you can prevent the side effects of hypoglycemia or also for overcoming the situation during the keto diet:
- It is essential to measure the blood sugar levels daily and monitor them if you are a diabetic patient. If you do not have diabetes, it is still necessary to monitor the blood sugars to know better than they are low or high.
- Suppose you are a diabetic patient doing the keto diet. In that case, you should take your medications at the time, and if you can manage the blood sugar levels, you should also take a piece of medical advice about it to change your medicines according to it.
- Eat a lot of vegetables on the keto diet as they can provide you enough essential and healthy carbs so that you do not experience hypoglycemia.
- Maintain the protein and fat portions on the diet plan correctly so that your body is getting enough nutrients for energy purposes.
Ketogenic Diet and Type 2 Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes is the medical condition in which the insulin hormone is either not producing enough insulin to signal the body to absorb and store glucose or not producing the hormone at all, which in result cause the person to have high blood sugar levels that increase the risks of heart problems, kidney disease, etc. which is very dangerous for the human body.
If a person already has diabetes conditions, the doctors always suggest a diet plan lower in sugars and carbs and taking medications to have a healthy lifestyle. The ketogenic diet is one of the popular low-carb diet plans, which is often adopted by people with type 1 or type 2 diabetes to have managed sugar levels.
But often, when people with diabetes start a keto diet, they have low blood sugar levels, which are hypoglycemia in standard terms. Still, this cause due to specific issues that they are not consuming enough vegetables, protein, or fats on the diet plan, which cause this condition, but these side effects can be overcome easily by correctly doing the keto diet and then. So, as a result, you will have the best results, which will help you with weight loss and manage your blood sugars at a healthy level.
Is Keto Safe for Diabetes?
Some people often have this question in mind: Is the keto diet safe for diabetic patients, especially if the person is going through 1 or type 2 diabetes. So, in diabetes, the blood sugar levels are very high because the insulin hormone is not working correctly either it is making very little insulin or not at all, which causes the glucose level to be increased in the blood, which is very dangerous for human life.
Usually, the doctors recommend the diabetic patient intake foods containing low sugar and carbs levels to maintain the blood sugars. The ketogenic diet is one of the health programs that a person with type 1 or type 2 diabetes adopts to handle their health condition. As the keto diet is low in carbohydrates, blood sugar levels are maintained at a soft but healthy amount. In addition, the diet lowers the requirement for insulin in the body as ketones become the primary energy fuel.
A health study of 2019 concluded that the keto diet helps with reducing high blood sugar levels, which is suitable for diabetic patients.
Diabetic medications:
A ketogenic diet helps to reduce blood sugar levels so much that it can eliminate the need for medications for a person. However, sometimes a diabetic patient starts a keto diet and takes proper medications, which in result cause low blood sugar that is hypoglycemia to the person as the glucose level of blood was lower than 70 mg/dl.
So, a person should consult with a doctor regarding diet changes, and if they have good results from the keto diet, the doctor can also make some changes with their medications.
Medical studies have shown that the keto diet lowers the risks of diabetes in people who do not have this blood sugar condition yet. And also make glycemic control better in diabetic patients.
Every individual has their body requirements, so the best thing you can do before starting the keto diet, mainly if you are a diabetic patient as to consult with your physician or nutritionist.
Conclusion
The Keto diet is specifically a low-carb diet that helps people with many diseases. So as we are consuming very low carbohydrates, it will lower blood sugar levels automatically. Now having low blood sugar levels during the diet plan is not a dangerous thing as there are two reasons due to which it is happening, firstly it is due to the keto-adaptation, and second is if you are a diabetic patient then you having low blood glucose levels because along with the diet you also have medications.
So, as a result, you can handle both these conditions by taking some precautions and preventions them. The American diabetic association has concluded that the keto diet is good for diabetes and for people who want to prevent themselves from this chronic disease.
