A common trend in the food industry these days is the push for more organic, natural foods to replace or join their artificially-sweetened, artificially-colored counterparts. No one wants extra chemicals and preservatives in their food and beverages, right? So why would PWDs be any different with their glucose tablets? Which are, you know, supposed to be pure 
sugar? Glucose tabs are joining the organic movement with the launch of two new lines of glucose tablets, Dex4 Naturals from Atlanta-based CanAm Care and GlucoLift from the San Diego-based start-up Jungell.
CanAm Care’s Dex4 Naturals
CanAm Care came onto the glucose tablet scene a few years back, and then became the primary player with their Dex4 products when BD — the makers of those chalky glucose tablets known and hated by almost anyone who tried them — sold their glucose tablet business to CanAm Care two and half years ago. Many people were thrilled with the addition of tastier flavors, like raspberry, grape and even sour apple.
But there’s a small subset of loyal BD customers who were not happy. BD’s glucose tablets were originally made free of artificial flavors and colors. CanAm Care has received phone calls over and over from customers complaining about the Dex4 products.
“The customers were saying, ‘We used to buy the BD product because it was dye-free’,” explains Phil Willis, VP of Marketing. “They said, ‘We don’t want any color in our glucose. We don’t want artificial flavoring in our product.’”
In response, last month, CanAm Care launched new Dex4 Naturals, a pure glucose tablet made without any color dyes or gluten or caffeine. Right now, they’re only selling them in orange flavor, which I’m not personally a huge fan of. But if sales go well, Dex4 Naturals plan to expand into other flavors.
“We are working a flavor strategy that will hopefully hit markets in 2012,” Phil says. “We hope to bring something new and exciting to glucose tablets. They’ve basically been flavored the way they are for about 20 years. Even competitors basically copy what we’ve done. We want to push the limits on what flavor options could be delivered, and deal with this flavor fatigue that’s a big issue with glucose tablets.”
(Wow, it’s almost like they’re listening to customers, no?)
Dex4 Natural’s are already available in Walmart and Walgreens, and will be coming to RiteAid soon. The tablets are available in 50-count bottles for $6.99 and rolls of 10 for $1.49, and each tablet contains 4 grams of sugar. CanAm Care is providing DiabetesMine readers with a Buy One Get One coupon for any of the Dex4 products!
CanAm Care is also a big advocate of getting folks to make the switch from treating low blood sugars with juice or soda to treating them with glucose tabs. Why? To sell product, of course. But also to help with your health! Because if you treat just three low blood sugars a week (the average for a PWD) with juice, you’re consuming 26,000 extra calories a year! That’s seven extra pounds you’ll gain! Want to know how many extra calories YOU are consuming, by treating lows with items packed with fat and calories? Check out CanAm’s nifty “Smart Choices” calculator.
Jungell’s GlucoLift
San Diego-based Chris Angell was one of CanAm Care’s dissatisfied customers. After years of disliking glucose tablets because of their “ingredients, taste, texture, and packaging,” Chris, a 30-year-old type 1 PWD with no food science background, went about creating his own glucose tabs line. Launched a little over a year ago, his product GlucoLift uses non-GMO dextrose (which means the dextrose is not from corn), and comes in three flavors: Orange Cream, Wild Berry, and Cherry.
“Our cherry flavor comes from cherries, our berry flavor from berries, and our orange-cream flavor from oranges and cream,” says Chris. “We don’t use any FD&C or Lake colors, as they have been linked to numerous health risks, and serve no benefit in terms of raising blood sugar. My feeling is that diabetes is enough to deal with; there’s no need to ingest risky chemicals to treat low blood sugar when they don’t provide any added benefit.”
GlucoLift products also come with an easy-to-open flip-top, unlike the stoppers or twist caps on the Dex4 products. Chris says those products can be difficult to open when low, shaky and disoriented (as pointed out so eloquently by our D-blogger friend Bernard Farrell).
GlucoLift is also the product to receive an “Approved Product” seal from Take Control of Your Diabetes (TCOYD), the popular conference series founded by endocrinologist and type 1 PWD Dr. Steve Edelman, who is also Chris’s endocrinologist. We haven’t had a chance to try GlucoLift ourselves here at the ‘Mine yet, but Chris says, “Dr. Edelman is a big fan of the tablets.”
You can snag samples when Chris exhibits at TCOYD conferences, and GlucoLift is also available on Amazon.com for $8.99 for a bottle of 40 tablets. Like Dex4, each tablet contains 4 grams of sugar.
We’re definitely big fans of getting rid of dyes and other artificial crap! We agree with Chris that there’s enough artificial garbage in the food we all eat already, so no need to add it to our glucose tabs.
So, anyone planning on making the leap to organic hypo treatments? Also, who’s got a favorite flavor? Amy and I both prefer the berry varieties ourselves.
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Favorite flavor: Reeses PB cups!!
Watermelon, when I can find it.
I have been T1 diabetic (on a pump) for 16 years and only used glucose tablets for maybe the first year. They are difficult to lug around, even in a tube, the texture is unappealing, and they are expensive. The BEST thing I’ve found is fruit snacks – cheap (buy in bulk!), easy to carry (don’t get crushed and chalky), and the perfect amount of sugar (21g per pack is just right almost every time). I get them from Target but if you want organic I’m sure you can get them. Don’t throw your money away on glucose tabs!!
I loved the Sour Apple flavor, but that seems to have been discontinued, at least in my area. Also great are the little balls made by Dex4, with 1 carb each. Sometimes, at least for me, 4 carbs is just too much, and those little Dex4 balls are great. Hopefully, they will go all natural in the future.
Can you tell me what brand of fruit snacks you are speaking of? Thank you very much.
Q loves the orange cream GlucoLift tabs.
I too try to avoid artificial colors in the foods I serve my kids. It’s difficult to do. I spend hours (okay, maybe 5 minutes) in the aisle every time I buy their vitamins to make sure they don’t have dyes.
CanAm Care’s “Smart Choices” calculator distorts the serving size. If you treat a hypo with 5oz of juice, you’ll have the exact same calorie intake as treating the hypo with 4 glucose tabs. The calculator also assumes that all calories are converted directly into additional weight, which is non-sense.
Disappointing to see company propaganda passed on to end users without even basic fact checking.
@Matt: I think we’ll have to respectfully disagree — folks who treat with juice or food regularly overtreat their low blood sugar because it can be difficult to “portion control,” leading to an excessive amount of calories and fat consumed. I also believe this is taking into account that folks are treating their low blood sugar in addition to the calories they eat on a normal day to match their activity. If you eat more calories then you burn, you’ll gain weight! I think this is a good picture that how much food you consume for a low blood sugar really does impact overall weight, even if it’s not 100% accurate for everyone (like yourself).
Though in reality, the best solution would be to avoid lows altogether!
These are so great and I’m looking forward to trying them soon. When blood sugar is low we require glucose. When we take juice or candy we are getting fructose that needs to convert to glucose and therefore the effect isn’t as fast on blood sugars. Not only that but fructose overloads the liver causing us to have a rise in triglycerides and who needs cholesterol problems when diabetes might already elevate our heart disease risk? I’m all for treating with glucose tablets, and even better-natural ones like these.
Another eye-opening blog, thanks Allison!
Sysy brings up a great point on actually getting glucose in the body, BTW.
Overtreating? For sure! Early on in my diabetes life, I tried everything to avoid those nasty B-D blocks of chalk, the result was the classic Mt. Everest highs after a low. Once I went on the pump and was able to have a more predictable activity with my insulin, I wanted to stay away from Mt. Everest. Dex4 has been a good answer for me (no problem w/orange!)
Fair Winds my D-friends,
Mike
@Matt – I think the “Smart Choices” calculator was meant as a general tool to remind us that when we treat lows with food, sweets, and sugary drinks, we’re taking in a lot of unwanted extras — rather than just the pure sugar needed at that moment.
I seriously doubt that our mentioning it here is misleading anyone, Matt. We all get that it’s a marketing tool — and kind of a clever one at that
The DEX4 liquid shots are the best in terms of treating a low quickly.
They are ridiculously difficult to open – that’s why I open them beforehand and tighten the cap.
Ok there, I take offense to your that those old BG tabs were “known and hated by almost anyone who tried them”… Actually, I LOVED them and as a kid used to sneak them and treat them like candy. I was so bummed when those were discontinued. Of course, I do certainly like most flavors of the newer ones, and treat them the same ways.
But what a cool topic, and how interesting on the organic front!! I’m going to find those and try them – especially since they’re orange, another favorite of mine! Yes, I’m weird…
Thanks for the update, Allison!
To quote the article, “CanAm Care is also a big advocate of getting folks to make the switch from treating low blood sugars with juice or soda to treating them with glucose tabs. Why? To sell product, of course. But also to help with your health! Because if you treat just three low blood sugars a week (the average for a PWD) with juice, you’re consuming 26,000 extra calories a year!”
When I say passing on the company propaganda, this is literally what I mean. Stating someone is consuming 26k extra calories per year when you don’t know how a diabetic actually treats his/her lows nor the serving amounts is stating a fact about someone without acquiring the information to check that the fact is true. I can see why, based on cost alone, a person would want to treat hypos with juice.
I think it is unfair to assume that people troubled with portion control won’t have the same problem with tabs as they have with juice. If you can’t manage to use only 5 oz of juice, how are you going to manage to eat just four tabs?
I have hypoglycemia unawareness/unresponsiveness and I cannot hold a glass of anything if my sugar gets below 20 however if it is handed to me I am able to eat a glucose tablet. They have saved me from a hospital bill many a time!
I have to agree with Matt. And actually, it’s insulting to assume people with diabetes are too hapless to treat lows with juice. Oh, and how do you manage to eat just four tabs – easy (if past experience is any indication!) – the real question is how do you manage to get four chalky tablets down without choking.
So, it’s great new products are being developed. Tell us about the advantages. Are scare tactics necessary for marketing?
@Matt – OK, point well taken. We can’t verify that it’s a full 26K extra calories per year. We’d appreciate a math/tech expert like yourself vetting that number — although the fact remains that you DO take in a lot of extra calories / fat / chemicals when treating with other stuff. Thx!
Iv actually tried the Dex4 Natural Orange, and I like it a lot better (tastewise) than the original… Its not bad.. Though i wonder if the natural tablets are a tad larger than the original ones, for some reason I wasn’t able to refill my old dex4 rolls with the new tabs.. Once the plastics gone, they have also done away with the foil, and theres some give to the plastic wrap seal, so it is easier to open the bottle, if you didn’t preopen the bottle when you got it.
Why is there no mention of USDA Organic, nor Non-Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) certified for Dex4 Naturals (D4N)? I just hope when food is required to be labeled GMO, these products also must be labeled. It’s great that there is no artificial ingredients; however, I will take ORGANIC JUICE over GMO products any day. Especially when considering GMO’s are suspected as having caused a severe increase in a multitude of diseases (including auto-immune diseases like diabetes) in rats and other animals.
Why is there no mention of USDA Organic, nor Non-Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) certified for Dex4 Naturals (D4N)? I just hope when food is required to be labeled GMO, these products also must be labeled. It’s great that there is no artificial ingredients; however, I will take ORGANIC JUICE over GMO any day. Especially when considering GMO’s are suspected as having caused a severe increase in a multitude of diseases (including auto-immune diseases like diabetes) in rats and other animals.