What’s a Liver Dump

WHAT’S A LIVER DUMP? 

When you eat your body converts the food into glucose basically.  The glucose is then used by the body and any extra is stored in your liver or converted to fat.

The liver is like your own personal EMT, when it senses that your blood sugar is too low it “dumps” some glucose into your system to raise the numbers.  If this didn’t happen your body would shut down and you could go into a coma at some point. This is very rare, however, and much more likely to happen with type-1′s who overdose on insulin or have deleted their liver’s supply of glucose because

of frequent lows. Too many lows in a short period of time can delete your liver’s supply of glucose so that it’s unable to respond. Again, this is a very rare occurrence.

So in many ways this is a good thing, and your liver is your friend. This happens to everyone to some extent, even people who aren’t diabetic if they go too long without food.

The problem with many people with diabetes is that their liver is waaaay to helpful. It’s as though it’s over-active and doesn’t wait until your blood sugar gets to 50 or below. Research has found that a certain hormone that non-diabetics have that regulates their liver isn’t always working with T2. It’s like “Liver Gone Wild!!

That’s one reason why we tell people to eat frequently, every 3-4 hours. It keeps the liver calmed down.

Another way that a “liver dump” can happen is if you take insulin or an insulin stimulating drug. If you don’t eat enough carbs to keep your BS at a good level you go low. Then your liver takes over for you. That’s why it’s so important to balance medication with carbs, and it usually requires a period of testing and adjusting to get it right.

Finally, this can also happen with exercise unless you eat enough carbs to cover it.  Exercise lowers BS numbers, but you also have to constantly fuel the muscles and organs with glucose, because that’s their fuel. True, the body can convert protein and fat into glucose, but it’s a much slower process and not the body’s favorite way to do it. And if you’re very active it’s just too slow, and you end up with constant liver dumps. Here’s a chart to use as a guideline. The ketone information is mostly for type-1′s, and you still have to test for your own personal amounts, this is only a guideline: click on the title http://lizzysdlounge.com/2012/03/17/carbexercise-chart-2/

Carbs aren’t your enemy, you just have to learn when and how to use them for the best results. And you have to also be aware of the affect of any medications you might take and activity levels on the carb levels you consume.

It sounds really complicated, but in short time you learn to balance it. It just takes practice and quite a bit of testing at first.

Lizzy