The Best Diet For Diabetes [9cd373]
Post Time: 2025-07-29
Maintaining healthy blood sugar levels is crucial for overall well-being, and understanding what constitutes normal blood sugar ranges after meals is essential. The American Diabetes Association recommends the following fasting glucose level targets: 90-130 mg/dL for individuals without diabetes and less than 180 mg/dL two hours after a meal.
Blood Sugar Range After Meals: What You Need to Know
The ideal post-meal blood sugar range varies depending on individual factors, such as age, weight, activity level, and overall health. However, most people with normal blood glucose levels can expect their readings to be between 70-120 mg/dL two hours after eating a meal. Factors that contribute to fluctuations in blood sugar ranges include the type of food consumed (glycemic index), individual insulin sensitivity, physical activity, stress levels, and sleep quality.
The Role of Diet in Regulating Blood Sugar
Diet plays an essential role in maintaining healthy blood sugar levels. Foods with low glycemic indices (GI) tend to cause a more gradual increase in blood glucose compared to high-GI foods. Examples of low-GI foods include whole grains like brown rice and quinoa, non-starchy vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower, lean proteins like poultry and fish, fruits including berries and citrus fruits. Incorporating these food groups into your diet can help stabilize blood sugar levels.
The Science Behind Normal Blood Sugar Levels Explained
Insulin sensitivity is a critical factor in regulating blood sugar ranges. Individuals with normal insulin sensitivity require less insulin to manage their glucose levels after meals. This process involves complex metabolic pathways, including the release of hormones like glucagon and epinephrine, which signal for the body's energy needs.
Managing Blood Sugar Levels Through Exercise
Regular physical activity can help lower fasting blood sugar ranges and improve overall insulin sensitivity. Resistance training is particularly beneficial as it improves muscle function by promoting capillary formation in muscles – this enables better delivery of glucose into these tissues to utilize them up, ultimately reducing circulating levels of the latter.
Reducing Blood Sugar Fluctuations with Stress Management
Stress affects everyone differently; some people might experience an immediate increase in blood sugar due to stress while others may see their numbers drop. Maintaining healthy stress management techniques such as mindfulness practices (meditation or yoga), engaging hobbies, getting enough sleep and resting well when required.
Blood Sugar Range Monitoring: What You Need to Know
Monitoring your post-meal blood glucose levels regularly can provide insights into how diet, exercise routine, lifestyle adjustments contribute towards achieving an optimal range. Frequent monitoring helps identify potential issues that may impact glycemic control before they escalate further thereby helping manage health outcomes better.
The case for using a plant-based diet to reduce the burden of diabetes has never been stronger. New subscribers to our e-newsletter always receive a free gift. Get yours here: If all a plant-based diet could do is prevent and reverse the number one killer of men and women (heart disease), shouldn’t it be the default diet until proven otherwise? (See How Not to Die from Heart Disease ( Yet the evidence for the benefits of a more plant-based diet continues to emerge for a variety of other life-threatening chronic diseases. I’ve previously discussed plant-based diets and diabetes in: • Plant-Based Diets and Diabetes ( • Plant-Based Diets does alcohol raise blood sugar levels for Diabetes ( • Benefits of a Macrobiotic Diet for Diabetes ( • How Not to Die from Diabetes ( • Reversing Diabetes with Food ( • Diabetes Reversal: Is It the Calories or the Food? ( And what was that about stopping kidney decline in its tracks? See: • Treating Chronic Kidney Disease with Food ( • Which Type of Protein Is Better for Our 5.2 blood sugar conversion Kidneys? ( • How Not to Die from Kidney Disease ( • How to Treat Heart Failure and Kidney Failure with Diet ( Learn more about the dietary phytochemical index I mentioned in Calculate Your Healthy Eating Score ( Have a question about this video? Leave it in the comment section at and someone on the NutritionFacts.org team will try to answer it. Want to get a list of links to all the scientific sources used in this video? Click on Sources blood sugar at 500 is that bad Cited at You’ll also find a transcript and acknowledgements for the video, my blog and speaking tour schedule, and an easy way to search (by translated language even) through our videos spanning more than 2,000 health topics. If you’d rather watch these videos on YouTube, subscribe to my YouTube Channel here: Thanks for watching. I hope you’ll join in the evidence-based nutrition revolution! -Michael Greger, MD FACLM Captions for this video are available in several languages. To find yours, click on the settings wheel on the lower-right of the video and then "Subtitles/CC." Do you have feedback about the translations in this video? Please share it here along with the title of the video and language: To view the subtitles in transcript format, click on the ellipsis button below the video, choose "Open transcript", and select the language you'd like to view them in. Image credit: Dustin Kirkpatrick • Subscribe: • Donate: • HOW NOT TO DIE: • Facebook: • Twitter: • Instagram: • Podcast :