It’s possible to gain weight from treating too many bouts of hypoglycemia. I addressed this topic over a decade ago, but it remains relevant and worth revisiting, along with addressing some new insights on weight gain in general with insulin use. Weight Gain from Treating Lows Although you can’t avoid treating a low, everything you use contains calories (at least until mini and nasal doses of glucagon are available) and those extra (albeit medically necessary) calories can st

The topic of insulin action (resistance and sensitivity) has come up multiple times over the years in my articles and posts, but it is admittedly much more complex than I often make it out to be. In a DiabetesInControl article I posted last summer, you can find a short list of all the factors that can potentially improve insulin action (basically insulin sensitivity). In reality, though, sometimes it is impossible to know exactly what is affecting it. Recently, I spent the ma

Muscle mass is likely the most important tissue in your body when it comes to managing insulin action and blood glucose levels. It is also one of the most important things to maintain to live well and independently as you age. In other words, you can’t afford to lose your muscle mass if you want to live long and well. What exactly is muscle? It’s comprised of about 20 percent protein, with the rest mainly made up of water plus a few minerals and some carbohydrate and fat stor

​There's nothing worse than doing everything right (or so you think) and having your blood glucose levels running high inexplicably. The problem may be that many different factors can affect your insulin action (whether it's insulin your body releases or insulin you inject or pump), and you may or may not be controlling for all of them equally well. What we do know is that most athletic individuals have lower levels of insulin and require less insulin release for carbohydrate

​​A lot of people with diabetes delay going on insulin for as long as possible because they’ve heard horror stories about how much weight it can make them gain (or maybe they just don’t like shots or needles). Of course, people with type 1 don’t have a choice and have to use insulin to stay alive. Why is it then that using insulin usually causes weight gain, regardless of which type of diabetes you have? It's possible that you start gaining weight when your blood glucose is

Here are important things everyone needs to know about exercise and diabetes: Many times, exercise can virtually erase your blood glucose mistakes. It acts as an extra dose of insulin by getting the glucose out of your blood and into your muscles without insulin (through an insulin-independent mechanism related to muscle contractions themselves). When you’re not active, your body needs insulin to stimulate that uptake. Being regularly active makes your muscles more sensitive

In recent years, the most compelling scientific evidence for diabetes management has been the inclusion of resistance/strength training as part of an exercise routine. Why is it so important? Think of it this way: our muscles are the main place we have to store any excess carbohydrates that we eat, and the bigger the muscle "gas tank,” the more carbs we can store there. The sad reality is that getting older by itself causes some loss of muscle mass over time. If you go on a