Up here in Auckland we must be heading into winter dammit – the feijoa tree is starting to bear fruit out back and it’s started raining more and more this last week or so which are both clear signs that the colder months are well and truly on their way. Not to mention the colder weather which is also somewhat of a clear give away, really.

Let the 6 months of rain, casseroles and pickles begin…

Some of you may have noticed a comment of mine on Nic’s blog ‘Return of the Night Spikes’ the other day when I mentioned that I think the change in seasons has an effect on my insulin requirements and how, invariably, my BGs go to all hell around the time of a season changes. This is particularly true for me going from Summer to Autumn and, from Winter to Spring. It’s like my body suddenly wakes up, shakes itself together and then says to itself – nah, your basal rates aren’t right and you can just have random BGs for say, a month – t’da!

It tweaked Nic’s interest and it also tweaked mine so I whacked it into Google and had a peruse through the results but it seems that there isn’t actually much research and/or evidence out there to corroborate my intuitions or at least, not that I can find I should say (Not that I take that to mean a heck of a lot given how idiosyncratic everyone’s diabetes is but it was interesting) There have been some vaguely interesting studies done on teleost fish on what effect temperature has on the BGs (poor person who did that study…), West European Hedgehog to say that BGs drop when they hibernate and then finally, like a beacon in the dark I found an obscure reference to an article in Diabetologia which is a medical journal that “publishes original clinical and experimental research within the field of diabetes.” I quote:

“…Significant seasonal variation in mean blood glucose values occurred, with highest values in winter and lowest in spring (March–May, inclusive)…”

I doubt that anyone really cares enough to go and read that article but in the event that you did I’ve put the article teaser here or, you can get the full article for a mere $34 from their site by going here.

All that science aside my gut tells me that a change in the seasons plays havoc with me at least – what about you?

- Aaron