Is anyone familiar with using carb factors to calculate bolus insulin? I was taught this method as one way to calculate carbs and have learned that it is not widely used.
I have learned so much from many of you on how to thrive while living with T1D, since I joined your ranks 3 1/2 years ago.
I think you’re referring to insulin-to-carbohydrate ratio (ICR): the amount of carbohydrate covered by 1 unit of rapid-acting insulin (typically expressed as grams per unit). If not, please clarify what you mean by “Carb factors.”
From what I learned, “carb factor’ is the amount of carbohydrates in 1 gram of food. For example: an orange with peel has a cf of .07 , meaning an orange weighing 137 has 9.59 grams of carbs.
I think we’re speaking the same language, or at least about the same thing, but I’ve never gone as low as to try to understand the amount of carbs in 1 gram of food. It was just never useful info for me to know. What is very important (when I can figure it out) is, how many servings of a thing is @Liam-M eating and with that info and looking at labels, we can derive how many total carbs (minus Fiber) that we need to bolus for (Insulin to Carb Ratio)
I can see trying to understand lowest level carb info if you’re trying to eat a non-standard serving, but even when we’re doing that, we just say ‘1/2 more’ or ‘1/3 more’ carbs based on how much he ate.
For the past 5+ years, we do a lot of “sugar surfing”…just making best guesses, bolusing and correcting (with insulin or fast carbs) after the fact…this happens especially when we’re going out to eat…no time or patience to request nutrition info…we just wing it based on our best guesses after having eaten the same “type” of food hundreds, or thousands, of times.
Thanks for your interest in this topic. I think many of us become very good at guesstimating! I just have me to look after. For those of you helping your child, I have the greatest admiration! I read any research related to T1D that comes my way. I hope for a bright future for you and your family! I am grateful for all the tech and communities like this one!
The carb factors are the ratio of carbs weight to total serving weight. For example on the side of a pasta box will be : “Serving size 2 ounces (56 grams)…carbs 42 grams” so the carb factors is 42 grams carbs divided by 56 grams dry = 0.75. Now weigh out your serving on a food scale, say it’s 70 grams…the carbs in that serving are 72 x 0.75 = 54 grams.
@Sally : Yes I learned carb factors, about ten years ago. For a while I carried a few pages from a carb factors paper and occasionally looked at it when prepping a meal.
Using carb factors works best with a food scale…some foods (like fresh baked bread) can vary a lot if you are using 1 slice as a serving size measure. Weighing the slice and using 0.4 as a carb factor works pretty well.
Thanks for your responses. I carry the information and a small scale in my DEB (diabetes emergency bag) in my book of “everything I need to know and ask about continuing to live well with T1D’“. My usual diet consists of cooking and eating whole foods. If I eat out. I rely on the restaurants for carb counts, and sometimes it’s good. Diabetes is a numbers game.
This is why ai love FUD so much! Always learning something new! Sounds like a future video on T1D Academy!
I use t-shirt size (sm, med, large) carb counting along with other factors such as time of day and planned activities.
No experience with carb factors just a little anecdote.
When I started on a pump about 5 years ago I asked my trainer(who’s a knowledgeable T1D) about using carb factors cause I read about it in a book.
She asked if I was an engineer?? She said in her experience engineers really like and understand carb factors but for everyone else carb ratios tend to make more sense.
@Josie That’s funny…I are a engineer. Retired now but back when I carried around my little list of carb factors I was still working. You should see my recipe book, it’s got carb factor calculations scribbled all over it, boiling it all down to carbs per serving based on serving size.
I found the following on carb factors.
I’m they type who keeps a food log. I like to be able to look back at the last time I ate a particular thing and then look at the BG results, then adjust my dose. I keep a list of common (in my kitchen) carb factors (mixed with per-serving carb counts) paper-clipped inside the front of my food log. (Call me old-fashioned. Please.) There’s also this website.
Oh that’s great! I’m not such a weirdo!
Calorie KIng, you can easily calculate the carb factors for many foods by changing the quantity and units. For example, for Peperidge Farm 100% whole wheat bread, change the quantity from 1 to 100 and units from “serving, 1 slice” to grams et voila! the carb factor is .465. If your bread weighs 75 grams, then the carb estimate is .47 x75 or about 35 grams.
I also keep a list of carb factors for foods I eat often. And remember, that number is just a starting point for estimating insulin needs.
Are you talking about “exchanges”, or “carbohydrate exhanges”. When I was diagnosed originally that was part of it but it became more extensive later on; I was on SDI when I was diagnosed so no boluses… An exchange was an amount of food that contained 10g of (digestible, in the US) carbohydrate. Later there were books with colors (red, orange, green) according to “glycaemic index”; something that never worked for me.
What is certainly widely, almost universally, used these days for meal bolus calculation is to divide the number of [digestible] carbs in grammes in the meal by a number (the “carb ratio”, sometimes misleadingly called the IC ratio) to obtain the bolus in IU (Insulin Units, 1/100ths of a millilitre of U100 insulin.)
The “carb ratio”, which could also reasonably be called the “carb factor” is the number of grammes of [digestible] carbohydrate “covered” by 1IU.
The other ratio (factor) which is commonly used is the “correction factor” (there the word “factor” is commonly used). This is the change in blood glucose levels caused by 1 IU of insulin. Another phrase for this is, “Insulin Sensitivity Factor” (ISF).
The correction factor is much more dangerous than the carb/insulin ratio; everyone agrees on the latter, however the former depends on where you live. My correction factor in the US has always been around 50. In the UK it is about 3. This is because of the different measurement units used for BG in the US and the UK. It took me about 10 years to get used to the US units…
The two numbers can be used to determine how much our BG will rise if we eat something and don’t bolus for it… Take the grammes of [digestible] carbs you ate and multiply by ISF/“IC” (i.e. the carb factor). Doesn’t matter where you live.
Likewise you can determine how many carbs you ate from the inverse; take your BG rise and multiply by IC/ISF. This works if we are flatlining and not subject to the morning phenomenon/FOTF, so pretty much only later in the day when we haven’t eaten, haven’t got stressed and are not building a big brick wall (unless employing other people to do the heavy lifting, of course.)
This brings another wrinkle or two into the discussion… units we use mmol or mg/dl and words and/or abbreviations we use.
Thanks Carlos!
I also am not sure what you’re talking about but I understand correction Factor that is my current blood glucose level divided by-120 (optimal glucose level) and the result is divided by 30 or whatever your insulin sensitivity factor is. The result in the amount of insulin you would give yourself by injection. So say my glucose is 280 it would be 280-120÷30 equals, and it would come out to whatever. That would be the insulin injection I would give myself. Now I am on a pump, but there are occasions where I’ve still done injections when I was high.
That’s my understanding of “correction factor” too.
