Today I want to talk about the glucose tolerance test during pregnancy and why it can be complicated if you are doing Bright Line Eating.

My Ph.D. is in brain and cognitive sciences, which means I am not a medical doctor. What I share with you here is related to my personal experience navigating two pregnancies while staying Bright. I want to share what I learned and offer a potential workaround you can discuss with your doctor.

Why the Glucose Tolerance Test Matters

The glucose tolerance test is something your doctor may want if you are pregnant, to see if you’ve developed gestational diabetes. Diabetes can happen during pregnancy even in people who previously had no issues with diabetes, prediabetes, or high blood sugar. Why? Because there are major hormonal shifts during pregnancy, and these may cause the cells to process sugar less efficiently. You need something like three times as much insulin as normal to handle pregnancy, and the pancreas may not be able to keep up.

To do the test, the pregnant patient drinks a concentrated glucose beverage. It’s extremely syrupy and sweet. Then blood is drawn and tested to see how the pancreas responds. For those who are keeping to their Bright Lines, the test may feel off-limits, because of what it might awaken in the brain.

Finding a Different Path for Glucose Tolerance Testing

When I was pregnant with twins, my amazing OBGYN wanted me to take this test. I was 33 years old, which put me at higher risk for gestational diabetes, as did the fact that I was carrying twins.

My doctor described the test to me, and I told him in no uncertain terms that I wasn’t doing it. So we had a stand-off. We discussed it, and I told him I’d had no sugar in years. I was clear with him that I was worried about what it would do to my brain to drink a cup of sugary liquid.

Finally, we reached a consensus: he asked me to come into the lab fasting and then eat the highest-carbohydrate breakfast my program would allow. Then we’d test my blood sugar two hours later, and if he saw anything worrisome, I’d have to take the glucose test. I agreed

My breakfast is protein, grain, and fruit. So I chose this meal:

• plain yogurt (not Greek yogurt just regular), which has lots of lactose, a natural sugar
• quick oats, which are fairly processed, but stay within the Bright Lines
• and a banana

So, I did the test. They did a baseline blood draw, then I ate my breakfast, and two hours later, they drew my blood again.

The next time I saw him, he was astounded to tell me the results. My baseline glucose was 87. Two hours after the maximum carbohydrate meal, it had gone up only 1 point, to 88.

So, I didn’t have to take the glucose tolerance test after all.

I did that for my next pregnancy, too, and I passed as well.

I offer this simply as a potential workaround you may want to discuss with your doctor if you’re asked to take a glucose tolerance test.

When Food and Medicine Hit the Brain Differently

When something is consumed for medical reasons, it tends to hit the brain differently. For example, typically, colonoscopy prep includes a sweetened drink. But I’ve never seen anyone be triggered by doing this prep.

I can’t explain why, but expectations and motives prepare the brain in a different way. The placebo effect can be powerful when something hits that your brain reads as a drug versus a medicine. So, you may be fine with the glucose tolerance test if you end up having to do it.

But it’s a lot of sugar. It’s supposed to be. Its purpose is to send your body spinning, to see how it responds. As a food addict, that worries me, so I went to great lengths to avoid it.

But if you do the test just with the expectation that you’re doing it for your health and that of your unborn child, you may be protected. You need to do what you can to have a healthy pregnancy, but this may offer you another option.