The article linked above was recently published on our website. The article should stimulate your thinking and make you better at understanding and managing blood glucose levels.
The example used in that article describes blood glucose fluctuations in a group of recreational athletes who consume between 45% and 65% of their calories as carbohydrates. But many of the ideas and observations also apply to people on low carb diets. One of the tests of Physiological Literacy from that article deserves publication in a separate post and we do it here.
A Test of Physiological Literacy: Can exercise cause hyperinsulinemia?
You can find more details on the study by Thomas et al. in the article mentioned above. Here, we reproduce just the test.
Thomas et al. wrote:
Athlete 09 (Ath09) and athlete 05 (Ath05) undertook the most exercise during the monitoring period, averaging 102 and 158 min/day respectively. This high training load could have contributed to the low time spent by the two athletes in the interval between 4.0 and 6.0 mmol/L of blood glucose, as exercise is known to increase blood glucose and induce hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia as a result of this catecholamine response. References: 17,19,20
3. Is the statement by Thomas et al. correct? Does exercise induce hyperglycemia and hyperinsulinemia?
This particular test requires knowledge of several important facts on the interaction of hormones. It may take time to figure out the entire picture. However, the importance of this particular piece of Physiological Literacy is highlighted by the fact that Thomas et al. struggle to provide a good explanation of their observations.
