Why carbohydrates?
Food is primarily composed of three types of substances: proteins, fat, and carbohydrates (there are more pieces to it: you also need, among others, vitamins, trace elements and fatty acids…). Carbohydrates are primarily sugars, sugar alcohols, fibers, and starches. Most things that end in -ose are carbs (lactose, fructose, glucose, etc.) Our body is able to quickly turn carbohydrates into glucose: you can see the effect in a few minutes with a glucose meter.
Treating a low
Since carbs quickly raise our BG, , when we are low (hypoglycemia), if we want to raise our BG right away, the best we can do, barring the use of special hormones (like glucagon), is to eat carbohydrates.
In extreme cases, when we are unable to swallow because we are too low, it is possible for us, or someone else more likely, to inject us with artificially synthesized glucagon, which will cause our liver to dump a large quantity of glycogen into the blood as glucose. We’ll discuss glucagon in a later chapter.
Growing up T1D 