# 'Carbs & Cals' and x effect on blood glucose



## Jon-Manchester (May 25, 2022)

Hi,
I have recently bought the app & book 'Carbs & Cals'. Extremely useful but i am trying to understand what the app tells me with the 'x effect on blood glucose' beyond the carbs listed for a particular food item.

I dont quite get what it is telling me when it says for example '6x effect on blood glucose'? So for example  100 g of rice has 32 g of Carbs and it then lists that it has '6x effect on blood glucose'

What doest the '6x effect...' mean? So far I am just using the app to help me estimate the carbs in food and I pretty much ignore the  'x effect on blood glucose' but perhaps I am missing a trick here?

Many thanks
Jon


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## trophywench (May 25, 2022)

I've not got the App, only the originally produced book.  No idea whatsoever what it means and never heard anything for any type of diabetes expressed in that way.  Surely one could only use it if comparing  how something affected BG in comparison with something else?  except I fail to see how that would assist anyone.


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## Jon-Manchester (May 26, 2022)

trophywench said:


> I've not got the App, only the originally produced book.  No idea whatsoever what it means and never heard anything for any type of diabetes expressed in that way.  Surely one could only use it if comparing  how something affected BG in comparison with something else?  except I fail to see how that would assist anyone.


Thank you, i am glad i am not only one not understanding this. It is strange, i have searched on their website and just not finding any information on it.


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## EmmaL76 (May 26, 2022)

Rice is pretty much at the top of the glycemic index. Maybe it has something to do with the speed it effects your BG.


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## Jon-Manchester (May 26, 2022)

EmmaL76 said:


> Rice is pretty much at the top of the glycemic index. Maybe it has something to do with the speed it effects your BG.


That is what I assumed as well but I don’t understand how it is meant to be used from a bolus perspective  ‘6x effect on blood glucose’..


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## EmmaL76 (May 26, 2022)

Okay so I googled it.. 
all it came up with was your post, so not sure its a thing lol


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## Paul Goldie (May 26, 2022)

I just found this in the got a question section of the app. It is a visual way to represent carbs, and each "blood glucose icon" simply represents 5g of carbs. So to be honest its not much use, in fact it says that you can turn the feature off if you want to and then just go by the total carbs amount that is shown


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## Jon-Manchester (May 26, 2022)

Paul Goldie said:


> I just found this in the got a question section of the app. It is a visual way to represent carbs, and each "blood glucose icon" simply represents 5g of carbs. So to be honest its not much use, in fact it says that you can turn the feature off if you want to and then just go by the total carbs amount that is shown


That sound like a completely useless feature. Thank you for finding the answer though, now I know that I can ignore it and just focus on the gram carbs.


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## rebrascora (May 26, 2022)

I could understand if it was 10g units as that would be "Carb Portions" which was the old way of doing things, but 5g carb units makes little sense at all.  How odd!


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## Paul Goldie (May 29, 2022)

So I have been thinking about this and I think I have worked out the logic. They are using the 5g carb as a generic ICR and therefore if the food is listed as 35g Carb and they put 7 blood drops up then this means you will need 7 units of insulin for that particular part of your meal. So you would go through the whole meal you are about to eat and add up all the blood drops and that would be how much insulin you need to cover that meal.


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## ColinUK (May 29, 2022)

Even though I’m not on insulin I like the instant impact that blood drops have. 
It’s a very simple cue for me to absorb so perhaps it just helps slightly more visual learners.


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## SB2015 (May 29, 2022)

Hi @Jon-Manchester i also have the book so have not seen the blood drops.  As @mikeyB says it couod be a visual cue for the amount of carbs.  As you are needing to know the amount to dose your insulin I guess you could use it to estimate to the nearest 5g or as suggested just turn it off and carry on as before.  
I found the book useful when I was out and about as the pictures give a visual comparison to what was in front me.


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## ColinUK (May 29, 2022)

SB2015 said:


> Hi @Jon-Manchester i also have the book so have not seen the blood drops.  As @mikeyB says it couod be a visual cue for the amount of carbs.  As you are needing to know the amount to dose your insulin I guess you could use it to estimate to the nearest 5g or as suggested just turn it off and carry on as before.
> I found the book useful when I was out and about as the pictures give a visual comparison to what was in front me.


It’s on the app!


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## Sally71 (May 29, 2022)

Paul Goldie said:


> So I have been thinking about this and I think I have worked out the logic. They are using the 5g carb as a generic ICR and therefore if the food is listed as 35g Carb and they put 7 blood drops up then this means you will need 7 units of insulin for that particular part of your meal. So you would go through the whole meal you are about to eat and add up all the blood drops and that would be how much insulin you need to cover that meal.


That's all very well if your insulin:carb ratio is 1:5 but I bet not many people's fit that exactly.  Or even 1:10. My daughter’s was 1:17 for a while!
But some people do find images easier to understand than numbers, and if you are type 2 and just trying to reduce the amount of carb you eat rather than actually having to calculate doses for it, then it may well be useful.


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## Elizabethe (May 30, 2022)

I have the book and currently having a two week trial of the app. I would prefer it, if it had the facility to scan the bar codes on food and drink. I did email them and they replied saying it was too costly but hope in the future to incorporate this into the app.i use the book but not convinced I will purchase the app. Unless I forget to cancel!


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## Proud to be erratic (May 31, 2022)

Elizabethe said:


> I have the book and currently having a two week trial of the app. I would prefer it, if it had the facility to scan the bar codes on food and drink. I did email them and they replied saying it was too costly but hope in the future to incorporate this into the app.i use the book but not convinced I will purchase the app. Unless I forget to cancel!


I also have the book and app. 
But the more I use the app the more convinced I am it's a serious waste of money. By far my biggest concern is a failure to provide a standard figure of x carbs per 100gm; even for similar items, eg pulses, the picture amounts vary in weight so you have to query each similar item to find one has a greater carb % than another. I also regularly find UK supermarket items that simply are not included; today it was mandarins. Yes I know they are similar to satsumas, clementines (and easy peelers, which are not listed) but when tinned in juice or syrup and the tin label had already been discarded? On  its own its relatively trivial, but almost every time I want to know something the app fails me. For £37 p.a. its poor value.
I was making a list of items I couldn't find as I stumbled into them, but it got sufficiently long for me to stop wasting my time keeping track.


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## Dave W (May 31, 2022)

I have the book and also the app which I got when it was free and they both are fairly handy for gaining an APPROXIMATION of carbs in a meal or portion. I certainly wouldn't splash out on the current cost of the app.
What I've found most beneficial for my control is recording in a notebook the carbs in various foods/portons I eat regularly, I get the carb content from the labels or the internet and do the maths sometimes, but now not often, after weighing.


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## John360 (Jun 9, 2022)

I have had the app for some time, there are some improvements that could be made but the carb content is what I go by using 10g to 1 unit insulin, works very well. The 'blood drops' indicator I use as an alert feature that says to me calculate carefully.


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## wass71 (Aug 22, 2022)

Elizabethe said:


> I have the book and currently having a two week trial of the app. I would prefer it, if it had the facility to scan the bar codes on food and drink. I did email them and they replied saying it was too costly but hope in the future to incorporate this into the app.i use the book but not convinced I will purchase the app. Unless I forget to cancel!


I'm using the fitbit app which has this facility


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## Martin62 (Aug 22, 2022)

wass71 said:


> I'm using the fitbit app which has this facility
> 
> 
> Elizabethe said:
> ...


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## benreeve (Nov 25, 2022)

Paul Goldie said:


> So I have been thinking about this and I think I have worked out the logic. They are using the 5g carb as a generic ICR and therefore if the food is listed as 35g Carb and they put 7 blood drops up then this means you will need 7 units of insulin for that particular part of your meal. So you would go through the whole meal you are about to eat and add up all the blood drops and that would be how much insulin you need to cover that meal.


I have been Googling this question from @Jon-Manchester and came across this thread, and I find Paul's answer interesting/concerning....depending on how you read this, but I have been using these 'drops' as an indicator for my extended bolus cals. Do I'm using an OmniPod Dash system, and I have always used these blood indicators in the same way that @EmmaL76 had mentioned, so the higher the blood drop count, the more bolus I deliver immediately, against how much I leave extended and for how long.

It's been working for me, but that might just be a happy accident.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Dec 2, 2022)

ColinUK said:


> It’s on the app!
> View attachment 21145



Those are sugar cubes aren’t they?

So a rough ‘equivalent to x cubes of sugar’ as a visual reference? Which would explain why it’s divided into 5g increments guess?


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## benreeve (Dec 2, 2022)

everydayupsanddowns said:


> Those are sugar cubes aren’t they?
> 
> So a rough ‘equivalent to x cubes of sugar’ as a visual reference? Which would explain why it’s divided into 5g increments guess?


They’re blood drops with sugar cubes inside them I think. 
And are sugar cubes all 5g? That’s a strange measurement for the developers to use IMO, but you might be right, and I’m the worst diabetic alive so shouldn’t really have an opinion. ‍♂️


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## Drummer (Dec 2, 2022)

benreeve said:


> They’re blood drops with sugar cubes inside them I think.
> And are sugar cubes all 5g? That’s a strange measurement for the developers to use IMO, but you might be right, and I’m the worst diabetic alive so shouldn’t really have an opinion. ‍♂️


I find that I need to calculate legumes at 1.8 times the listed carb value - so do some others, yet some eat them freely as a low carb food - so it is always wise to check and be somewhat sceptical about figures in a book or app.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Dec 2, 2022)

benreeve said:


> They’re blood drops with sugar cubes inside them I think.
> And are sugar cubes all 5g? That’s a strange measurement for the developers to use IMO, but you might be right, and I’m the worst diabetic alive so shouldn’t really have an opinion. ‍♂️



Yes I agree. But it’s not the first time I’ve seen cubes used as a sort of visual metaphor.

A sugar cube is supposed to be one teaspoon’s worth, which ought to be approx 5g I think.


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## SueR73 (Dec 9, 2022)

The app gives you an idea on what is going to spike your glucose the most with blood droplet score also good news barcode scanning is coming to the app.


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