Scientists from Purdue University have found that a Mediterranean diet with low GI foods could help manage blood sugar levels in people with a high risk of type 2 diabetes.
A metabolic syndrome is a group of conditions that occur together, increasing the risk of heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes.
The Mediterranean diet is a healthy way of eating that is based on the traditional cuisines of Greece, Italy, and other countries that border the Mediterranean Sea.
This diet supports metabolic health, but whether including low-glycemic index (GI) foods in the diet could minimize meal-related blood sugar remained unclear.
In the study, the team examined the contribution of GI towards improvements in blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes.
They compared high versus low-GI diets in people at risk for type 2 diabetes. Low GI foods include green vegetables, most fruits, raw carrots, kidney beans, chickpeas, lentils, and bran breakfast cereals.
Medium GI foods include sweet corn, bananas, raw pineapple, raisins, oat breakfast cereals, and multigrain, oat bran, or rye bread. High GI foods include white rice, white bread, and potatoes.
For 12 weeks, 160 participants from Italy, Sweden, and the United States, who had at least two metabolic syndrome symptoms, ate either a low-GI or high-GI Mediterranean diet.
The team examined meal-related blood sugar and insulin responses to high- or low-GI meals and daily blood sugar change via continuous glucose monitoring during the study.
The researchers found that the people’s meal-related blood sugar levels were higher after the high-GI meals compared to the low-GI test meals.
Meal-related blood sugar levels after the high-GI meals increased and were much higher than that after the low-GI meals.
The team also found the average daily blood sugar levels decreased in both groups after the study.
But the blood sugar variability for 24 hours was reduced in the low-GI diet group compared to the high-GI diet group.
Based on these findings, the researchers suggest that low-GI foods may be an important part of the Mediterranean diet to benefit people at a high risk of diabetes.
Eating a healthy diet and including low GI foods, such as fruits, vegetables, and legumes, can help manage blood sugar levels and reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and other metabolic conditions.
If you care about diabetes, please read studies that green tea could help reduce death risk in diabetes, and widely used diabetes drug metformin may reduce cognitive decline.
For more information about nutrition, please see recent studies that blueberries strongly benefit people with metabolic syndrome, and results showing vitamin D could improve blood pressure in people with diabetes.
The research is published in Nutrients and was conducted by Robert Bergia et al.
Copyright © 2023 Knowridge Science Report. All rights reserved.
