The Right Questions: What’s the Connection Between Your Blood Sugar and the Coronavirus?

The news is full of the coronavirus, newly classified as a pandemic by The World Health Organization (WHO). Folks are being advised to stay home and wash their hands frequently. The use of alcohol wipes and hand sanitizer is way up, and it can be problematic to find nitrile gloves and antimicrobial wipes online. A quick check last night revealed that even when these products are available, prices are triple their normal range. Such is our preparedness for this pandemic.

This is a new challenge for us as a culture, and I’m interested in asking some deeper questions about what underlies our ability to fight viral exposure. Consider that our immunity responds to the daily lifestyle choices we all make. What if we could do more than wear barriers to prevent viral spread? What if we could make lifestyle choices that affect our actual immunity inside our skin?

INSULIN RESISTANCE AND IMMUNITY

Innate immunity is our first line of defense when we get exposed to any antigen, such as an invasive microbe or virus. Immunity is a complex subject, but our innate immunity is one of the first targets of the coronavirus. It is by evading our innate immunity that coronaviruses get their hold on us. Common sense suggests that if we make poor lifestyle choices that discourage innate immunity, we will be more susceptible to novel immune challenges such as the coronavirus.

Good lifestyle choices are essential to promote health at the most fundamental level. Let’s take a brief look at blood sugar and insulin resistance. When blood sugar (glucose) levels are fluctuating, our immune response suffers. Furthermore, when glucose levels are consistently elevated, we may actually be fueling the very viral invaders we seek to avoid. Bluntly: when your glucose levels are poorly controlled, in effect, you’re feeding the enemy.

Elevated glucose levels are pro-inflammatory. Innate immunity evolved with metabolic pathways in fatty (adipose) tissue, liver, bone, and muscles co-emergently to fight against inflammation, infection, and injury. More than a dozen components of innate immunity are directly linked to metabolic disease, which includes insulin resistance, pre-diabetes, and Type 2 diabetes. Many viruses, especially respiratory viruses, suppress our innate immune response, gaining the opportunity for increased viral replication, and in doing so, set up serious lung infections. When our blood sugar levels are consistently elevated, we may be skipping down this sinister primrose path, unaware of the consequences.

WHAT ARE BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS AND HOW ARE THEY MEASURED?

In my book, elevated blood sugar (glucose levels) is anything over 100, measured using a standard blood glucose monitor. You know, the kind you get at the drug store, with the pinpricks and test strips. To find out how resistant you are to your own insulin production, test yourself an hour after eating a large protein meal. I’m not talking about a fruit smoothie or pancakes but after a protein-rich breakfast. If, after an hour of knocking on cell doors, the glucose in your blood is still high (above 100), you are likely to be insulin resistant.

Insulin is a hormone that informs your cell membranes to open and admit glucose, one of the two kinds of fuel your cells can burn. The other fuel is oxygen. High blood glucose levels mean your cells are not responding to insulin’s cue to open sesame. Cell walls must open to admit glucose, so each cell has the fuel to do its particular job.

You think everything’s fine because your blood sugars tested normal at your last checkup? Think again. A more accurate way to verify your blood glucose status is to check your blood glucose levels multiple times over two or more weeks. Testing sugars two times a day over ten days or more shows you a whole glucose-uptake-movie, compared to the snapshot you get from a one-off blood test at your doctor’s office. Continued high readings, even after you eat a protein-rich, low glycemic meal, indicates no one is answering when insulin knocks at your cellular doors. That shows you are in a pro-inflammatory, less robust state of immunity.

As cellular insulin resistance develops, your body produces more insulin to knock on your cellular doors – louder this time. At some point, when your cell membranes continue to ignore insulin, your pancreas (the home of insulin production) gets exhausted. Then you can tip over into pre-diabetes with blood glucose levels between 100-125. Perhaps you’ll tip all the way into Type 2 diabetes, with readings of 125 and above. This is cause for sincere concern as those who have “pre-existing conditions,” ranging from insulin resistance all the way to Diabetes Type 2, are reported to suffer increasingly severe consequences from coronavirus.

HOW MANY OF US WALK AROUND WITH HIGH BLOOD SUGAR?

The sad truth is one in three Americans walks around with elevated blood sugar. This statistic includes half of Americans over the age of 60. It is precisely this population that is susceptible to more severe problems stemming from the coronavirus. High blood sugar affects our innate immunity, and immune insufficiency can increase viral replication and cause tissue damage. This is particularly true when inflammation remains uncontrolled due to high glucose levels. You get the picture.

WHAT CAN I DO TO EMPOWER MYSELF?

Blood glucose monitor kits are readily available at your local drug store (unlike alcohol wipes and nitrile gloves). Get a test kit and check your blood glucose levels after your two biggest protein meals of the day. If your sugars remain above 100, make better food choices. There is ample information in the Paleo, GAPS, and Keto food spaces to direct food choices in the right direction.

Remember, when we feel otherwise helpless, we eat for comfort. The stress of our present pandemic is likely to express as comfort eating, especially when we remain at home with our favorite snacks at hand. Eating low on the glycemic spectrum means making food choices that include fewer processed carbs and straight-up sugary foods. Eating nutrient-dense foods (higher in healthy fats and proteins) will slow the conversion of food into glucose. Higher-fiber foods also slow blood sugar conversion rates. These are the choices we make with every mouthful. Can you empower your innate immunity by making the best food choices from what you have available? It’s up to you, and you can find out.