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Medical Video: Diabulimia: The World's Most Dangerous Eating Disorder
Many people with diabetes who are not eating or routinely fasting for diabetes because they think that eating heavy or something sweet can increase blood sugar levels which are already high. Although it sounds reasonable, fasting diabetes is not a wise step.
Even though blood sugar will go down as soon as you miss a meal, if you do this habit for hours or even regularly, your glucose levels can actually soar so that it accumulates in the blood. This can be fatal - complications of heart disease, coma, and even death. Here's the explanation.
Diabetics who intentionally don't eat will actually increase their blood sugar
Diabetes fasting is defined as not eating for at least eight hours. Your body needs a supply of glucose to function optimally. The cells in your body depend on glucose as a nutrient intake and then process it into energy. You can get glucose from the food you eat, such as fruit, milk, potatoes, bread, and rice. Glucose can also be obtained from carbohydrate reserves in the body, called glycogen.
Your body then breaks down carbohydrates into glucose, which is then delivered to each body cell through the bloodstream. But to be able to use glucose, the body's cells need insulin. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas, which functions as a "bus" that transports glucose from the blood into the cells.
Even without fasting diabetes, the body cells of diabetic patients are already in a "fasting condition" - lack of glucose that enters cells due to lack of insulin. Diabetic patients in general are unable to produce enough insulin needed, or cannot use insulin properly. This then causes the body's cells to starve.
In the body of diabetic patients, starving cells will burn fat stores to get glucose. However, glucose will not be able to enter the cell because of the condition of the body that does not have enough insulin. This results in glucose that has already been made by the body to accumulate in the blood. The condition when blood sugar levels soar is called hyperglycemia. Hyperglycemia is one of the most common complications of diabetes that can be fatal.
Blood sugar levels that are too high due to fasting diabetes can cause coma
Continuously skipping meals will consume energy sources from fat reserves. When there is no more fat reserves left, starving body cells can target other reserves to get energy, for example from muscles.
But the diabetes you have will still hinder this glucose processing process due to the lack of supply of insulin, so that glucose will still accumulate in the blood. When your blood sugar soars dramatically (hyperglycemia), your blood turns thick and feels sweet. This excess sugar will be removed through urine, which can trigger a large amount of body fluid drainage.
Meanwhile, after the cell energy is drained, your body will respond by starting the process of diabetic ketoacidosis to produce toxic acids called ketones. If not controlled, diabetic ketoacidosis can cause chronic dehydration and coma, or even death.
This is a risk that you might face when you have diabetes, but stopping (or not routinely) taking your medication coupled with the habit of skipping meals or fasting diabetes to reduce your blood sugar.
So how do you reduce blood sugar?
It is very important for diabetic patients to always maintain the stability of their blood sugar. That's the reason doctors recommend using insulin and / or diabetes medicines that have been prescribed, including also recommending a routine and timely diet.
If the doctor has prescribed diabetes medication, you should continue to consume it regularly even when blood sugar is stable while still having to eat as usual. Leave diabetes fasting habits from now on.
