For years, doctors have told diabetics to avoid skipping meals in order to maintain healthy blood glucose levels–but now a new study challenges this claim.
Reporting from Linkoping University in Sweden, researchers say skipping breakfast while eating a Mediterranean-style diet may be more effective than frequent eating when it comes to maintaining healthy blood glucose levels.
“It is very interesting that the Mediterranean diet, without breakfast and with a massive lunch with wine, did not induce higher blood glucose levels than the low-fat diet lunch, despite such a large single meal,” says Professor Fredrik Nystrom, who helped research the study. “This suggests that it is favourable [sic] to have a large meal instead of several smaller meals when you have diabetes, and it is surprising how often one today refers to the usefulness of the so-called Mediterranean diet but forgets that it also traditionally meant the absence of a breakfast.”
Recruiting a total of 21 participants, scientists first made the discovery when testing out different diet methods on blood glucose control–an issue that remains at the forefront of diabetes treatment and prevention. In their study, they compared various diets, such as the low-carb diet and the Mediterranean diet, as well as different eating patterns.
During the study, researchers asked participants to skip breakfast while abstaining to a diet common in the Mediterranean–a diet that emphasizes the consumption of whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and healthy fats. During the course of the study, participants only sipped of plain black coffee as their daily breakfast, while eating the bulk of their calories during lunch.
Oddly enough, this approach had a better effect on their blood glucose levels than eating a healthy diet spread out into several meals a day.
“We found that the low-carbohydrate diet increased blood glucose levels much less than the low-fat diet but that levels of triglycerides tended to be high compared to the low-fat diet,” says Hans Guldbrand, who helped research the study with Nystrom. Nystrom also adds that these findings should heighten the need for scientists to re-evaluate current diabetic diet recommendations–though it may be too soon to recommend skipping breakfast as a means of controlling diabetes.
“Our results give reason to reconsider both nutritional composition and meal arrangements for patients with diabetes,” says Nystrom.
Recommendation
If you’re at risk for diabetes, now’s the time now to get your blood glucose under control. Eating a Mediterranean diet combined with breakfast skipping may be the key to avoiding diabetes later in life. If you already have diabetes, speak with your local healthcare provider about changing your diet plan to fit the new findings–it could help keep your diabetes under control for good.
“The large Mediterranean-style lunch-meal induced similar postprandial glucose-elevations as the low-fat meal despite almost double amount of calories due to a pronounced insulin-increase,” says Nystrom and Gulbrand. “This suggests that accumulation of caloric intake from breakfast and lunch to a single large Mediterranean style lunch-meal in NIDDM might be advantageous from a metabolic perspective.”
Readers: Have you tried this diet before?
Sources:
Study: Breakfast Skipping May Lower Blood Glucose – PLOSONE.org
Single Heavy Meal Ideal for Diabetics – Post.Jagran.com
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