In the previous post we talked about how blood sugar imbalances come in 2 forms:
- Insulin resistance: chronically elevated blood sugar
- Reactive hypoglycemia: blood sugar fluctuations
The graph below shows an example of what imbalanced blood sugar levels may look like over the course of the day. Keep in mind, normal blood sugar levels are considered to be 80-120 mmol/L, which includes post-prandial (after a meal) levels. With insulin resistance (red line) they will still fluctuate throughout the day, but they are typically always higher than normal. On the other hand, reactive hypoglycemia (blue line) will have larger fluctuations with high blood sugar levels followed by drops. This is why it is difficult to diagnose because the level could appear normal depending on when it is tested.
As far as symptoms go, there are some similarities and differences depending on the type of imbalance. Here is a chart of some example typical symptoms:
You may not fall in either category perfectly as it is a continuum, but the chart above are some example symptoms that occur with blood sugar imbalances. Do you experience many of the above symptoms? If so, stay tuned as I will go over the effects of blood sugar imbalance and of course ways to improve!