It can sometimes feel like there are a million factors that affect blood sugar – but here’s a list of 42 factors that affect blood sugar, courtesy of diaTribe.
Not sure how these factors affect your blood glucose? Download the PDF below with more details, or check out the original article. Do you have any other factors to add, in your experience? Diabetes can be so confusing, sometimes! Like a puzzle with so many different options for how to make sense of it.
Food
- Carbohydrate quantity
- Carbohydrate type
- Fat
- Protein
- Caffeine
- Alcohol
- Meal timing
- Dehydration
- Personal microbiome
Medication
- Medication dose
- Medication timing
- Medication interactions
- Steroid administration
- Niacin (Vitamin B3)
Activity
- Light exercise
- High intensity and moderate exercise
- Level of fitness/training
- Time of day
- Food and insulin timing
Biological
- Too little sleep
- Stress and illness
- Recent hypoglycemia
- During-sleep blood sugars
- Dawn phenomenon
- Infusion set issues
- Scar tissue/lipodystrophy
- Intramuscular insulin delivery
- Allergies
- A higher BG level (glucotoxicity)
- Periods (menstruation)
- Puberty
- Celiac disease
- Smoking
Environmental
- Expired insulin
- Inaccurate BG reading
- Outside temperature
- Sunburn
- Altitude
Behaviour and Decisions
- More frequent BG checks
- Default options and choices
- Decision making biases
- Family and social pressures
Find out more about the explanations behind these 42 factors on the original diaTribe article here or download a helpful summary below that explains how each of these factors affects blood glucose.
What to read next?
Is sugar addiction at the heart of Type 2 diabetes?: South African family physician, Dr Beth Vale, works in the public health system and reflects on Type 2 diabetes in this article.
The Type 1 diabetes toolkit: what you need to carry at all times
Time in target: what it is, why it’s important, and how it can help
Photo by Kieran Wood on Unsplash
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