Diabetes: 8 lesser-known reasons behind your blood sugar spikes
Even with all the lifestyle changes, medication, and best practices you may experience spike in your glucose levels and that could leave you all confused. Here are some lesser-known reasons of blood sugar spike in diabetes.
Dealing with diabetes can be tricky at times considering the blood sugar levels can behave strangely at times. Even with all the lifestyle changes, medication, and best practices you may experience spike in your glucose levels and that could leave you all confused. To avoid a long list of diabetic complications from heart disease, kidney issues to vision problems, well-managed blood sugar levels play a significant role. Making healthy changes in lifestyle is advised for controlling sugar spikes as they help improve your energy levels and mood. Diabetes is a common metabolic disorder that occurs when your body is not able to make enough insulin or can't use it efficiently. (Also read: Diabetes: 5 natural ways to prevent diabetes before it starts)
First step for diabetes management is regular monitoring of blood sugar levels to ensure they are in normal range. If despite following all the instructions shared by your diabetologist, you are not able to manage your disease, you may be missing something.
Dr Tribhuvan Gulati, Diabetes Expert, Apollo Spectra Delhi Karol Bagh lists 8 factors that could lead to blood sugar spike in people.
1. Exposure to extreme sunlight or heat waves
Dehydration caused by sunburn can boost blood sugar levels as you sweat more which causes the kidneys to hold on to more water while the liver secretes more glucose or sugars, decreasing insulin sensitivity. Hence, it is a possibility that the discomfort of a sunburn leads to tension, and stress raises blood sugar levels.
2. Coffee and artificial sweeteners
Coffee and artificial sweeteners are other contributing factors that elevate your blood sugar levels. Even if you consume coffee without sugar, caffeine can trigger some people's body to produce sugar on its own.
3. Irregular sleeping patterns
Even one night of insufficient sleep can harm the way your body uses insulin. Lack of sleep causes levels of leptin, the hormone that helps us feel full, to drop and levels of ghrelin, the hunger hormone, to rise.
4. Skipping breakfast
Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day for a reason. Skipping breakfast might cause blood sugar levels to rise. The later it gets in the day, the tougher it might be to regulate blood sugar levels.
5. Hormonal imbalances
Whether they have diabetes or not, humans experience a hormone surge in the early morning hours due to the dawn phenomenon. So, people with diabetes may have blood sugar spikes.
6. Dehydration
Dehydration causes your blood sugar to become more concentrated because your body holds less water. Diabetes develops when the body doesn't create enough insulin, resulting in too much blood sugar that your kidneys must filter and absorb.
7. Nasal sprays
Some nasal sprays contain substances that cause your liver to produce higher blood sugar.
8. Gum disease
It is a blood sugar raiser as well as a consequence of diabetes.
