In a new study from King’s College London, researchers found that people who experience big dips in blood sugar levels, several hours after eating, end up feeling hungrier and consuming hundreds of more calories during the day than others.
They found why some people struggle to lose weight, even on calorie-controlled diets, and highlight the importance of understanding personal metabolism when it comes to diet and health.
In the study, the team used data about blood sugar responses and other markers of health from 1,070 people after eating standardized breakfasts and freely chosen meals over a two-week period.
The standard breakfasts were based on muffins containing the same amount of calories but varying in composition in terms of carbohydrates, protein, fat and fiber.
Participants also carried out a fasting blood sugar response test (oral glucose tolerance test), to measure how well their body processes sugar.
Previous studies looking at blood sugar after eating have focused on the way that levels rise and fall in the first two hours after a meal, known as a blood sugar peak.
The current team noticed that some people experienced significant ‘sugar dips’ 2-4 hours after this initial peak, where their blood sugar levels fell rapidly below baseline before coming back up.
Big dippers had a 9% increase in hunger, and waited around half an hour less, on average, before their next meal than little dippers, even though they ate exactly the same meals.
Big dippers also ate 75 more calories in the 3-4 hours after breakfast and around 312 calories more over the whole day than little dippers. This kind of pattern could potentially turn into 20 pounds of weight gain over a year.
The researchers also found no correlation between age, body weight or BMI and being a big or little dipper, although males had slightly larger dips than females on average.
There was also some variability in the size of the dips experienced by each person in response to eating the same meals on different days, suggesting that whether you’re a dipper or not depends on individual differences in metabolism, as well as the day-to-day effects of meal choices and activity levels.
The findings suggest that sugar dips are a better predictor of hunger and subsequent calorie intake than the initial blood sugar peak response after eating.
The team says many people struggle to lose weight and keep it off, and just a few hundred extra calories every day can add up to several pounds of weight gain over a year.
The discovery that the size of sugar dips after eating has such a big impact on hunger and appetite has great potential for helping people understand and control their weight and long-term health.
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The study is published in Nature Metabolism. One author of the study is Dr. Sarah Berry.
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