I’m always looking for collaborators for future experiments. If you’re interested in collaborating on scientifically rigorous self-experiments with low-carb foods, supplements, or other health interventions, please let me know in the comments or via the contact form on the right.
Two posts this week, Reader Requests and a literature survey and pre-registration of the effect of vinegar and other acids on blood glucose after meals.
Reader requests was really interesting. In every category, there was a Reader Request that either had a much lower BG impact than what I had found or gave significant insight into the BG impact of different ingredients.
I’m really excited about the vinegar/acid study, as well. There are three people participating so far, /u/genetastic, /u/kabong, myself. This should give us much more generalizable results and a decent shot of unraveling what’s going on with regard to effect size, scope, and mechanism (unclear from the literature). More collaborators would make the study even stronger, though, so if you’re interested, let me know.
Experiments this week focused the initial replication effort for the vinegar study and the last couple reader requests. Next week, I’ll shift back to the chocolate tests, though alternating those with the vinegar experiment will push back the final report on chocolate for a couple weeks (though I’ll have interim reports on the vinegar work).
Active & Planned Experiments
- Blood Glucose Impact of Low-Carb Foods
- Goal: Determine blood glucose impact of low-carb foods and ingredients
- Blood Glucose Impact of Supplements
- Goal: Determine blood glucose impact and mechanism of promising supplements
- Approach: tbd
- Status:
- This week: literature review, determining protocol
- Reported:
- Up next:
- Initial Replication (9/25)
- Methods of Sleeping Longer
Let me know in the comments if there’s any other experiments you’d like to see.
– QD
Observations & Data
- Sleep
- Sleep dropped this week, but still above target.
- HRV is way up this week. Not sure what to make of this as I haven’t been paying much attention to it. Will need to go back and see if it correlates to anything.
- Blood Glucose
- Blood glucose continues to look good. Still seeing a trend towards lower fasting & average BG.
- Time-in-range was much lower this week due to a few nights where I overshot my insulin dose for dinner. Need to be more careful here.
- After I hit my target weight and stabilize, I’ll take a look at this in more detail.
- Other Blood
- Hemoglobin downward trend is starting to look real. I have no idea what would cause this or if it matters, but if the trend continues I’ll look into it.
- Total cholesterol has gone up three weeks in a row and now above target. It’s coming from an increase in LDL, so I’m starting to be concerned about it.
- I’m not sure what could have caused it, but seems likely to be diet related as I can’t think of anything else that has changed.
- The trend in cholesterol lines up with the stabilizing of my weight, drop in hemoglobin, and increase in pulse.
- The main diet related change during this time is that I started having low-carb tortillas or buns with dinner. I’m going to try cutting those out and see what happens.
- With more data, it looks like the downward trend in pulse has reversed itself. I’m not sure what caused the original drop or the return to “normal”, but sleep doesn’t fit the trend. Two hypotheses:
- Aerobic exercise: I had increased the amount of rowing vs. weight training I was doing around the time of the sharp drop in pulse and have since returned to my original ratio. The increased cardio may have caused the drop in pulse. I don’t record my exercise, so I’m not certain the timing matches up.
- Weight loss: The minimum in my pulse corresponds to an inflection point in my weight (when the rate of loss slowed). It may be that the metabolic changes associated with rapid weight loss were causing a reduction in pulse.
- Diet change: I started having low-carb tortillas or buns with dinner. Per above, I’m going to try cutting those out and see what happens.
- My blood pressure is normal (for me) again this week. My Omron Evolve (portable BP monitor) arrived and I’ve started doing calibration tests.
- Body
- Weight still stable or possibly increasing despite cutting back on breakfast; I must be eating more at dinner to compensate. Per above, I’m going to cut out low-carb tortillas or buns with dinner and see what that does.
Sleep
Blood Glucose
Other Blood
Body
Methods
- Sleep
- Metrics: total time, heart rate variability, pulse (sleeping vs. waking)
- Methods: Apple watch + Autosleep app
- Frequency: daily
- Blood Glucose
- Metrics: fasting BG, Avg. BG, coefficient of variation, time 70-140 mg/dL, time <60 mg/dL
- Methods: Dexcom G6 CGM
- Frequency: continuous
- Other Blood
- Metrics: weight, waist circumference, BMI, waist/height
- Methods: scale + Renpho tape measure
- Frequency: weekly
- Body
- Metrics: hemoglobin, cholesterol, blood pressure, pulse
- Methods: Hemocue 801, Cardiocheck PA, Omron 10A
- Frequency: weekly for blood pressure & pulse, every 2 weeks for hemoglobin & cholesterol
