Eat a low-carb breakfast to help your blood sugar

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Imagine a group of international scientists, led by a pair from the University of British Columbia (UBC) Okanagan, giving you a new way to start your day.

Their advice? Change your breakfast. But it’s not about skipping your morning meal. Instead, it’s about what you eat for breakfast, especially if you have type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Who Did the Research?

Dr. Barbara Oliveira and Dr. Jonathan Little from UBC Okanagan led this exciting research.

They wanted to find out if a simple change in breakfast could help people with T2D control their blood sugar levels. Their findings were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

What’s a Western-style Breakfast?

When you think of a typical breakfast in places like the US or Canada, what comes to mind? Perhaps oatmeal, toast, and fruit? That’s called a “Western-style” breakfast. It’s usually low-fat and full of carbs.

What Did the Researchers Recommend?

Instead of a Western-style breakfast, the researchers recommend eating a low-carb meal full of protein and fat. Think eggs, bacon, or cheese. This single change can help control blood sugar for the rest of the day.

Why is This Important?

People with T2D often experience large increases in blood glucose levels after a meal. Keeping these levels under control is essential to manage the disease.

Not doing so can lead to complications like inflammation and cardiovascular disease.

The researchers found that eating a low-carb, high-protein, and high-fat breakfast can help prevent these sudden increases in blood sugar levels.

How Did They Test Their Theory?

The team ran a 12-week study with 121 participants, splitting them into two groups. One group ate a low-carb breakfast, and the other ate a low-fat, high-carb breakfast.

Everyone wore a glucose monitoring device to keep track of their blood sugar levels throughout the study. The participants also had their weight and waist measurements taken at the start and end of the trial.

What Were the Results?

Even though there were no significant differences in weight, body mass index, or waist circumference between the two groups, the low-carb group saw a reduction in blood sugar levels.

Some participants in this group were even able to reduce their glucose-lowering medication.

Additionally, the low-carb group had less variation in their blood sugar levels throughout the day, suggesting the benefits of a low-carb breakfast for stabilizing blood sugars.

An exciting extra discovery was that the low-carb breakfast group also ate fewer calories and carbs for the rest of the day.

This suggests that a breakfast high in protein and fat but low in carbs can influence what people eat for the rest of the day.

The Final Word

Dr. Oliveira sums it up nicely: A small change to the carb content of a single meal—rather than a complete diet overhaul—can make a big difference.

This simple change to breakfast can significantly improve blood sugar control for people with T2D. It’s a small tweak with potential for a big impact.

If you care about diabetes, please read studies about what you need to know about diabetes drug metformin, and people with diabetes should consider taking this vitamin.

If you care about diabetes, please read studies that Mediterranean diet could help reduce the diabetes risk by one third, and heavy cannabis use may decrease the incidence of diabetes.

The study was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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