Can a Zero-Carb Diet Raise Your Blood Sugar?

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series. It was originally posted at my Sharing the Magic of Low-Carb Living blog. I'm moving it here because the information is important, and I have other plans for that blog now.)

Over the course of my low-carb journey, I have tried several different types of low-carb diets. Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, Atkins 72, the Kimkins Diet, Protein Power, and a round of hHCG are just a few. Each time I made a change or tweak, I would carefully evaluate my progress to see if what I was doing was working, or if I needed to toss it aside.

In the Spring of 2009, I started participating in a 100-Day Very Low-Carb Challenge. The reason I entered into that challenge was because a traditional low-carb diet had stopped working for me. Since the whole idea of a low-carb diet is to find your own personal carbohydrate sensitivity, I thought the basis for the challenge made perfect sense.

If you aren't losing weight, then you're eating too many carbohydrates. Period!

So dropping my carbs down to zero, or almost zero, made a lot of sense to me. However, no one had ever mentioned that the lower in carbs you go, the higher your cortisol and adrenaline release will be. Why? Because a low-carb diet creates internal stress for a lot of people. The body perceives a diet (ANY type of diet) to be a famine, so the fewer carbohydrates you eat, the greater the famine response is going to be.

Does Zero Carb Lower Blood Sugar and Insulin Levels?

I don't remember how many days I lasted, but I had to call a halt to that 100-Day Very Low-Carb Challenge because I started having serious blood sugar issues. It's absolutely mind-blowing to me that the very basic principles of a low-carb diet do not fit my own experience. But how can that be?

Now maybe it's because we are all individuals and react differently to various foods and macronutrients, but when the very foundation that you've been standing on for months and even decades is ripped out from beneath your feet, it's hard to toss away the disappointment. I have to tell you, I really felt more than a little bit let down. I felt absolutely devastated.

When you lower your carbs, Dr. Atkins and Dr. Eades have said that you automatically lower your blood sugar and thereby lower your insulin levels. Right?

BUT THAT'S WRONG.

Or, at least, that doesn't always hold true if you lower your carbs down to biologically zero. For those of us that are sitting on the fence of pre-diabetes, that's very important information to have and know before you embark into zero-carb territory.

Now, was that stuff withheld deliberately? No. I don't think so. I think that ignorance about the reality of a very low-carb diet sits on both sides of the fence. But one would think that sincerity of heart would keep the doors of discussion open long enough to allow the facts to be revealed without having to pry it out of someone.

That's not how it works though.

Higher Blood Glucose Levels On Zero Carb

I lasted 5 weeks on zero carb. And even though my original intent wasn't to go that low, that's still what I ended up doing -- biologically zero carbs.

When I began that journey, my basal blood glucose was around 84. According to Dr. Bernstein, that's a perfectly normal blood glucose level. In addition, my blood glucose level never bounced up higher than 120, even on as many as 100 to 150 carbs per day, provided I stayed away from gluten.

I did have problems before my gluten intolerance was discovered, but I had absolutely no problems with my blood glucose since then. So I was of the mind-set that my blood glucose problems were in direct relationship to my gluten sensitivity.

The first week without carbs I felt absolutely great. My energy increased, my sinuses improved, and all of my digestion issues went away. My teeth felt cleaner, and the pain I was having in a broken tooth also went completely away.

But after that first week things started to do an about face. Slowly, I started to go down hill. I started out not feeling very well, and then suddenly I found myself having to endure a lot of tiredness. Excessive tiredness. At first, I thought that was because my body had run out of glucose and was trying to convert itself to predominantly burning fatty acids. Everything that we are told by Dr. Atkins and Dr. Eades will happen as our glycogen stores begin to run low.

At that time, I took my blood sugar, because I had one strip left. Although it had been hours since I'd last eaten, I was worried because I felt so terrible. The reading was 98.

That shocked me, not only because it had been hours since I'd last eaten, but because I've always had basal glucose levels in the lower 80s. Even when I was having issues before, between meals, my glucose had always returned to normal levels. But now, I was staring at a number that fell in the upper 90s. My guess at that time was that my levels were never falling back to normal.

So What Do Your Insulin Levels Do on Zero Carbs?

I tried to find information about our insulin levels on one of the zero-carb forums that I was participating in at the time, but it seemed the greater majority of participants there believed that when you cut out the carbs, insulin stays at basal levels giving you a flat line blood sugar curve. Or thereabouts. They didn't believe that the body needed insulin to digest proteins or dairy products.

There was no scientific data to back up that hypothesis. They simply told me that no carbohydrate in the diet came with a different set of normals. At the time, I didn't feel like arguing. I just accepted their viewpoint. As long as my blood glucose level didn't cross over 100, it was safe enough to assume that basal insulin levels were probably normal. Second insulin response kicks in and continues to manufacture and secrete insulin at blood sugar levels that are over 100.

Serious Trouble Begins

After about a month, I started having SERIOUS issues.

Neuropathy had resurrected itself, and I started having heart palpitations. That wasn't a good sign because it meant I was way above my blood glucose threshold.

BUT HOW COULD THAT BE????

I wasn't eating any carbs for heaven's sake. I was just eating meat and eggs. Insulin should be at basal levels. Blood sugar should be low. But my body was telling me that it wasn't.

About that time, I happened to read on one of the zero-carb forums that Bear, the original zero-carb guru, had told folks that protein is not converted to glucose through gluconeogenesis except under starvation or emergency conditions, and that his blood sugar constantly ran in the 100s all of the time. His perspective was that the goal of going zero carb wasn't low blood sugar, but stable blood sugar.

At which time, I thought...SAY WHAT????

At a blood glucose level over 100, stable or not, insulin doesn't shut off! The body perceives that level of blood glucose to be a threat!

For Part 2 click here.