Diabetic Ketoacidosis is NOT The Same As Ketosis
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Don’t fret. Ketosis is not dangerous and the ketogenic diet will not send you to an early grave. Diabetic ketoacidosis, on the other hand…
There’s a lot of confusion out there about ketosis vs ketoacidosis and whether they are the same thing. They are not the same thing.
Ketosis is a healthy metabolic state when there are between roughly .5-6mmol/L of ketones floating around in your bloodstream. Ketones within this range is actually very healthy for you.
Ketoacidosis, however, is a life threatening condition when there are 20mmol/L of ketones floating around in one’s bloodstream. Luckily, if your pancreas works at all, it will keep you safely out of this range.
People with diabetes ARE at risk of ketoacidosis.
People with a functioning pancreas ARE NOT at risk of ketoacidosis.
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I have 2 questions. Firstly, is my understanding correct that the cause of type 1 diabetes ketoacidosis, getting ketones, plus sugar, too high? So, a keto fueled adapted t1d, must not accidentally get sugar level above (100?) by eating sugars /carbs and not wacking the sugar level down with exogenous insulin? So is the ignorant type 1 diabetic that thinks they can go off insulin who is endangering themselves if they go keto?…….. My other question is selfish, about hypoglycemic warnings applicability. So, I am not diabetic, but have FTO gene, age 49,have physical job, very low metabolism. To manage my weight what works best is omad when I walk in door at night (easy to skip breakfast and lunch, impossible in evenings, married), plus evening workout around 7:30pm after hard work day, plus keto (nearly need to be carnivore plus fiber drink, else I gain weight.) After becoming keto adapted, I hit gym hard in evenings with (tested) very low sugar (40-70) and feel awesome, energized. So, I don’t believe in low sugar level warnings being the same for keto people v. Glucose people, also insulin insensitive type 2 diabetics should have their own level warnings, also insulin absent type 1 diabetics should have their own sugar warning levels. What complicates things is whether the person is keto adapted or not. So I do not understand hypoglycemia. Even when I was not keto adapted, if my sugar level dropped, I could always just sit down drink a glass of water and wait 10 minutes until my sugar came out to a normal level – The Only Exception would have been when I was working out super heavy as a glucose burner, I could sit down however because levels drop so quickly only orange juice could revive me. Now being keto adapted, such a light headed gym state doesn’t really exist….. It just seems like the hypoglycemic warning levels are designed by vegan doctors, who cannot envision a world of Keto – who are very ignorant about subtleties in fuel adaptation, much less insulin sensitivity v insensitivity and insulin absence v insulin presence….. I just feel better with sugar under 80, even down to the 40s,apparently. No energy crunch on keto.
I think what happens in type 1 diabetes, is that the liver starts making sugars from protein when the ketones start building up (may be normal keto response to manage blood pH for everyone) which means that they need to take their insulin and keep an eye on their sugar levels. The sugar levels can even rise, even when they are not eating sugar-they lack beta cells that even t2d have. A severe t2d, might need a jolt of insulin, but overall lower insulin and sugar levels are good for them. High sugar levels does serious life body damage in type 1 diabetics, so low carbs, blood sugar through diet is important for avoiding life long t1d complications. T1d, doing the healthy thing, have a tiger by the tail.
You didn’t mention whether you were testing the urine or blood for ketones. Is a ketone reading of 4.0 mmol/L safe or not, when using test strips for urine?