Stress and Blood Sugar
Stress hormones raise blood glucose by prompting the liver to release stored glucose, independent of what you ate.
2 September 2026Read →
Glucose, insulin resistance and the ingredients and habits that genuinely affect them.
Stress hormones raise blood glucose by prompting the liver to release stored glucose, independent of what you ate.
Eating vegetables and protein before carbohydrate within a meal reduces the post-meal glucose peak in several small trials.
Soluble fibre slows gastric emptying and carbohydrate absorption, flattening the post-meal glucose curve.
Glucose control often improves within days of starting a calorie deficit, before meaningful weight has been lost.
Chromium and vanadium are trace minerals long marketed for glucose control, with weak and inconsistent human evidence.
Alpha lipoic acid has been studied for insulin sensitivity and diabetic neuropathy, with the strongest evidence in the neuropathy setti
Fasting insulin, combined with fasting glucose in the HOMA-IR calculation, estimates insulin resistance before glucose itself rises.
Prediabetes describes blood glucose above normal but below the diabetes threshold, and it is a warning rather than a diagnosis of disea
Continuous glucose monitors track interstitial glucose in real time and are increasingly marketed to people without diabetes.
Glycaemic index ranks carbohydrate foods by their effect on blood glucose relative to a reference, measured in isolation.
A short walk after eating measurably reduces the post-meal glucose peak by using glucose in working muscle.
Cinnamon polyphenols have modest evidence for reducing fasting glucose and blunting post-meal rises, with inconsistent results across t
Berberine is a plant alkaloid with meta-analysed human evidence for improving fasting glucose, HbA1c and lipid markers.
HbA1c reflects average blood glucose over roughly three months, while fasting glucose is a single point-in-time reading.
Insulin resistance means cells respond less readily to insulin, so more insulin is needed to move the same glucose.
Carbohydrate is digested into glucose, blood glucose rises, insulin is released, and glucose moves into cells for use or storage.
In people without diabetes, the long-term average — reflected in HbA1c — carries more prognostic weight than individual post-meal peaks
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of findings — waist circumference, blood pressure, triglycerides, HDL and fasting glucose — that togeth
Aerobic exercise, resistance training and short post-meal walks each improve glucose handling through partly different mechanisms.
Even a few nights of restricted sleep measurably reduce insulin sensitivity in healthy adults.
Acetic acid from vinegar slows gastric emptying and modestly reduces post-meal glucose in several small trials.
Starch blockers, usually white kidney bean extract, inhibit alpha-amylase and reduce starch digestion modestly.
Metformin is a prescription medicine with decades of safety data and well-quantified effects on glucose.
Added sugars are those put into foods during processing; naturally occurring sugars come packaged with fibre, water and nutrients.
The dawn phenomenon is a natural early-morning rise in blood glucose driven by overnight hormone release.