High Post Meal Blood Sugars Destroy Nerves -- Before Diagnosis

A new study adds to the mounting evidence that high post-meal blood sugars damage nerves long before people get diagnosed with diabetes.
Research conducted at Kings College, London found that people who went on to be diagnosed with diabetes had a much higher frequency of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as early as 10 years before diagnosis. Carpal Tunnel is a nerve disorder.

The reason for this, not discussed in the article, is that the diagnostic test most frequently used to diagnose diabetes, the fasting plasma glucose test (FPG), misses abnormal blood sugars in a huge number of people, particularly women, in whom the early stages of diabetes are characterized by very high post-meal values and near normal fasting values.

Ten years of very high post-meal values will eventually destroy the beta cells, resulting in an official diabetes diagnosis. But by the time that happens, the ten years of exposure to high blood sugars have had time to ruin the nerves, blood vessels, retina, kidneys and other useful bits of equipment that we need to stay alive.

While Carpal Tunnel is a painful annoyance, what also goes unnoticed while high blood sugars run rampant after every meal is subtle destruction of the autonomic nervous system. The autonomic nerves, most notably the Vagus Nerve, control things like heartbeat, blood pressure, and the emptying of the stomach. Not only that, recent research by Dr. Kevin J. Tracy has shown that the Vagus nerve also regulates the immune system. His research shows that when the vagus nerve is not operating properly inflammation may go into overdrive.

It is possibly because the high post-meal blood sugars slowly destroy the vagus nerve which is so important for regulating heart beat and blood pressure, that for every 1% rise in the A1c the risk of cardiovascular "incident"--heart attack or stroke goes up almost two and a half times. It is also probably the reason why people with mildly elevated blood sugars may be prone to other inflammatory conditions.

If you have reason to believe you are at risk of diabetes, but your doctor diagnoses diabetes using only a fasting glucose test and does not investigate what your blood sugars are doing after meals or administer a Glucose Tolerance Test, it is time to find a new doctor. Waiting until your fasting blood sugars are bad enough to render a diagnosis of diabetes means waiting until your nerves are already half dead!

If you can't get a doctor to test your post-meal numbers, you can find instructions on how to do this yourself at home with an inexpensive drug store blood sugar meter at HERE