Can eating no sugar and low carb affect the glucose tolerance test?

Question

Can eating no sugar for 5 days affect the 3 hour glucose tolerance test? I am 29 weeks pregnant and I recently took the 3 hour GTT and passed, but I also had stopped eating sugar and went low carb about 5 days before I took the 3 hour GTT. When I found out that I had failed the first glucose test, which involved drinking that juice and waiting one hour, and then having my blood drawn, I thought that it would be wise to cut out sugar and slow down on carbs immediately, but now I am concerned it may have affected my 3 hour test. My doctor didn't give me a specific diet to follow before the GTT, just told me to fast for 10 hours before the test. Do you think this could have affected the results of my glucose tolerance test and should I tell my doctor?

Answer 1

Better safe than sorry.

Answer 2

Don't know...but cutting out all sugar and going low-carb like that could cause health issues for you and the baby. Talk to your doctor ASAP and explain what you did just to be safe.

Normally, for a test like this, you eat a normal diet up until the fasting period starts.

Besides, the irony is that the body will produce a certain amount of sugar out of starches and such even if you cut out all sugars.

Good Luck!

Answer 3

Do as your doctor suggests.

If you do indeed need help and medication during your pregnancy for diabetes, it is all in your best interest.

Don't try to just pass a test.

Do what is the best for you and your baby.

Congratulations.

Answer 4

No, and here's why:

The glucose tolerance test is a measure of how you react to a giant dose of fast-acting sugar all at once.  It takes you at your lowest point (fasting) and floods you with glucose to see what will happen.

The one-hour test is to screen out the people who absolutely aren't affected.  Many women will test positive to this test and have to move on to the second test.

The second test measures your blood for three hours after the initial dose of glucose.  What they are looking for is that your sugar is raised by the test, but also that the high blood sugars are SUSTAINED at that high level.  If you have a quick spike you will fail the first test but pass the second.  If you have gestational diabetes, your sugars will go up but will not fall quickly enough to be safe for the baby.

So if you passed the 2nd test, your blood sugar may spike but it doesn't stay up in the dangerous (above 120 to 130) for hours on end.

Being unable to tolerate glucose is largely a function of pregnancy hormones.  What you ate five days prior to the test had no effect on how you processed that large dose of carbohydrates. The only time it would matter is if you had eaten before the test when you were supposed to be fasting.  But the five days before the test, by eating low-carb, you were not affecting your body's ability to handle a big dose of glucose at all.  You weren't changing your pregnancy hormones. You can't eat your way into gestational diabetes either even though many think you can - the only way you get GD is if you have the predilection for it.  If you don't, you can eat ice cream all day and never get it (I think we all know a pregnant lady like that!).

If you are still worried, I suggest you follow a gestational diabetes diet, not a low-carb diet.  Low carb diets can put you into ketoacidosis which is a harmful environment to the baby.  GD diets are when you balance complex carbohydrates with protein and fat.  There are many examples on the internet if you use Google.