Of all the health claims attached to grounding, blood sugar is the one we take most seriously — and the one we're most careful with. Diabetes is a real disease with real medication, and nobody should read a blog post and start fiddling with their doses. So let's do what we always do here: look at what was actually studied, what it actually found, and why the honest answer is more complicated than either the hype or the skepticism suggests.
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And the medical one up front: grounding is not a diabetes treatment. Nothing in this article should change how you take your medication — that's a conversation with your doctor, full stop. What follows is the evidence as it stands, with all its limits intact.
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Send me the free guideThe study that matters: Sokal & Sokal (2011)
The key paper here is 'Earthing the Human Body Influences Physiologic Processes' by Karol and Pawel Sokal, published in 2011 in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. It's a package of five small double-blind experiments — calcium-phosphate homeostasis, electrolytes, thyroid function, blood glucose, and immune response.
Experiment four is the one that matters for this article. Twelve patients with type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetes were grounded continuously — during night rest and daytime activity — for 72 hours, while a control group was not. These were patients on glibenclamide (10 mg/day) who, despite diet, exercise advice, and the medication, had unsatisfactory glycemic control going in. After 72 hours, fasting glucose decreased in the grounded group relative to the ungrounded group.
That's a real, statistically significant result in a peer-reviewed journal, with a double-blind design. It is also: twelve people, one weekend, and a single short-duration experiment that has never been replicated in the fifteen years since. One weekend of data is not a treatment guideline. Nobody has run the obvious follow-up — more patients, more weeks, HbA1c as the endpoint — and that absence matters more than the single result.
The fair read: an interesting signal, in a small study, with a real methodology, that nobody has bothered to verify since. That's not proof. It's a reason someone should run a bigger trial.
The blood viscosity connection
There's a second finding that's often folded into diabetes claims, and it deserves its own section because it's separate from blood sugar. In 2013, Chevalier, Sinatra, Oschman, and Delany published a pilot study in the same journal: ten healthy adults were grounded for two hours, and researchers measured the electrical charge (zeta potential) on their red blood cells. Grounded blood showed higher zeta potential and significantly less red blood cell clumping — meaning lower blood viscosity.
Why does this get mentioned alongside diabetes? Because thick, clumpy blood is genuinely one of the mechanisms behind diabetic complications — poor circulation, wounds that won't heal, cardiovascular risk. A 2024 Indonesian study on chronic diabetic wounds even recommended earthing as a complement for wound care, partly on this reasoning.
The honest caveats, as always: the viscosity study used ten healthy subjects, measured over two hours, and viscosity is not glucose control. Less clumpy blood is not lower blood sugar, and treating them as the same thing is exactly the kind of slide this site refuses to do. Interesting physiology, separate question.
The trap to avoid
Some corners of the internet present grounding as an alternative to diabetes medication. We want to be blunt about this: that framing is dangerous. Diabetes medication keeps people alive. A twelve-person, 72-hour pilot from 2011 is not a reason to touch your doses.
Here's the more interesting — and genuinely under-discussed — possibility: if grounding does affect glucose or circulation even modestly, the people who most need to know are patients and their doctors working together. A glucose meter doesn't care about your philosophy. If you ground regularly and your numbers drift, your doctor needs to see that data so medication can be adjusted safely, in the right direction. The story here isn't 'grounding replaces drugs' — it's 'if you try this, your doctor should know.'
How to try it anyway
You have two routes: free and product-based.
The free route — with an honest confession
A barefoot walk outdoors is also a walk, and walking genuinely, measurably helps glucose control no matter what's on your feet. So if you take up barefoot walking and your numbers improve, you'll have no idea whether the Earth or the exercise did it. That doesn't make it worthless — it makes it a confounded experiment with a good outcome. Our beginner's guide and barefoot walking guide cover how to start safely.
One safety note specific to diabetics: peripheral neuropathy and poor foot circulation are common diabetic complications, and barefoot walking on rough ground can injure feet that don't feel pain properly. If you have neuropathy, don't go barefoot on hot pavement, gravel, or unfamiliar terrain. This is non-negotiable.
The product route
The Sokal study grounded people continuously — through the night and during daytime activity. If you wanted to approximate that setup, you'd combine nighttime grounding with something under your feet or body during the day:
- At night: a sleep mat across the bed is the closest match to the study's night-rest grounding. We've covered nighttime options in the best grounding sheets for sleep; a mat-style option is the Earthing Elite Sleep Mat.
- During the day: a desk mat keeps you grounded while you work — which also covers the daytime half of the study's protocol. The Earthing Universal Mat Kit is built for exactly this.
- Check your outlet first. Every reputable kit includes an outlet tester — use it. An ungrounded outlet means an ungrounded mat, and no product can fix your wiring. Our electrical safety guide walks through this.
If you try this with diabetes, do it as an experiment with data: check your glucose as you normally would, write down what you change and when, and bring the numbers to your doctor. That's how you turn an anecdote into something medically useful.
🌱 Get the free 7-Day Grounding Starter Guide
Most people feel the difference within a week of going barefoot. Get the free 7-Day Grounding Starter Guide — one short plan per day, no gear required.
Send me the free guideThe honest bottom line
Might grounding affect blood sugar? One small, real, never-replicated study says something moved over one weekend in twelve patients. The mechanism (blood viscosity, circulation) has its own separate pilot evidence. That's more than nothing and far less than proof — and it lives in a field where the follow-up trials just never happen.
Our suggestion: if you're diabetic and curious, the free version (barefoot walks, with foot safety in mind) costs nothing and is exercise either way. If you try products, track your numbers and tell your doctor. And never, ever adjust medication on the basis of a blog post — not this one, not anyone's.
Want the full evidence picture? Does earthing actually work? is our no-hype review of every major claim, and grounding and inflammation covers the mechanism most of these claims hang on.