Lowering Your A1C with A Healthy Diet

 
How Healthy Eating Can Help to Lower Your A1C
 
It goes without saying that a healthy diet can lead to a lot of health benefits. Better mood, energy, and overall healthy vitals. One other benefit you’ll find from a healthy diet is safe average blood sugar levels.

With a healthy diet, you can expect to see a gradual lowering of your blood sugar, rather than the quick lowering levels you see with exercise. But before we can understand how this can help lower our A1C, it’s important to understand a few things.

1. Testing Blood Sugar Can Be Tricky
These levels are ever changing. Your blood sugar can be raised and lowered day to day, meal to meal, and basically any second of the day. Depending on what you’re eating and whether or not you’re exercising. Additionally, the testing meters that many Type 1 diabetics use merely give us a glimpse into these levels rather than how your blood sugar levels change over time.
 
2. There Are Two Tests

• Glycated Hemoglobin or Hemoglobin A1c
• Fructosamine

Both are competing for top spot when it comes to which one is the best to measure glucose health with and they both provide a clearer picture of glucose levels over time.
 
Other Important Factors
Healthier blood sugar levels may have longer-lived red blood cells than those with poor regulation. This is why managing and maintaining healthy blood glucose levels is so important, as this allows red blood cells to live longer.
 
Fat Intake and Your A1c
The amount you eat can certainly have an impact on your hemoglobin and A1c levels. In a recent study, it was discovered that fat intake is associated with higher A1c levels. A similar study showed similar A1c levels were associated with saturated fan intake as well while on the other hand, those who took in more polyunsaturated fat had lower A1c levels.
 
High Protein Intake and A1c
Those who take in a high protein diet are likely to have a high serum urea which increases glycation. This could lead to much higher A1c levels.
 
Antioxidant Supplementation and A1c
While more research is needed to confirm and deny this, there is still early research that does at least suggest that vitamin C, E, and coenzyme Q10 can decrease your hemoglobin A1c levels.
 
 Anemia and A1c
 The results on the effects of armenia on hemoglobin A1c are somewhat mixed.
 
Those with untreated b12, folic acid, hemolytic, or iron deficiency anemia will artificially show lowered A1c levels even if they show high glucose levels and while this may be true, it’s also true that iron deficiency anemia can also higher the levels of hemoglobin A1c. This is due to a compound known as malondialdehyde which is also known to increase glycation.
 
 
When it comes to determining A1c, there are many factors to consider. However, when it comes to specific reactions to certain diets, high levels of anything can affect how your body reacts. It’s important to keep a balanced diet whether you’re diabetic, predisposed to diabetes, or completely healthy. By eating healthy and exercising frequently, you can maintain the healthy happy balances you need.

If you need help with creating a diet plan with health coaching and nutrition, don’t hesitate to sign up for a 15-minute consultation with eat. Fuel to perform today!