Is poor blood sugar control giving you a foggy head?

A foggy head is a common complaint among our patients. Many of them complain about difficulties concentrating, being easily distracted, forgetful and just not being as sharp mentally as they’d like to be. Most of us have extremely busy lives and we heavily rely on our brain to enable us to accomplish our job and errands each day. Work and life in general are easier if you are feeling mentally sharp and on the ball.

A number of different health problems can cause a foggy head, however recently Japanese researchers have discovered that poor blood glucose control is one culprit. Their research showed that poor blood sugar control places a person at 70 percent greater risk of cognitive problems.

Another study recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine analysed 97 previous studies that involved more than 820 thousand people. The studies compared people over the age of 50 who had blood sugar problems with people in that age group who had normal blood sugar. People with good blood sugar control lived an average of six years longer. Clearly maintaining a healthy blood sugar level is vitally important for health and longevity.

What does poor blood sugar control mean? It basically means that you either have diabetes or insulin resistance (Syndrome X or pre-diabetes). An ideal fasting blood sugar level is between 3.6 and 5.4 mmol/L (65 to 97 mg/dL). Many people have a blood glucose level higher than this.

Even if you have not been diagnosed with diabetes, if your fasting blood sugar is higher than 5.4 mmol/L or 97 mg/dL, the excess glucose is causing harm to your body. Having high levels of glucose in your bloodstream is harmful because glucose sticks to proteins and changes their shape and ability to function. We are basically made almost entirely of protein, and this is why high blood sugar and diabetes cause so many varied terrible health consequences.

Maintaining healthy blood sugar control is one of the most important things you can do to keep yourself healthy and slow down the aging process. The easiest way to keep your blood sugar down is to maintain a healthy weight. As a person’s waistline expands, their blood sugar tends to rise. It is also important to watch your intake of carbohydrate rich foods like sugar, flour, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes and breakfast cereals. All of those foods are digested into glucose. If you are a diabetic or pre-diabetic you already have too much glucose in your bloodstream.

There is an easy to follow low carbohydrate eating plan in our book Diabetes Type 2: You Can reverse It Naturally.

Ohara, T., et al, “Glucose tolerance status and risk of dementia in the community: The Hisayama Study,” Neurology. Sep 20, 2011;77(12):1126-1134.
The Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration, “Diabetes Mellitus, Fasting Glucose, and Risk of Cause-Specific Death,” N Engl J Med. 2011;364:829-841.