Afraid of blood sugar spikes, many people now avoid rice, roti, bread or pasta, and some without diabetes measure their glucose all day with a device. Citing a BBC report, Dhaka Tribune says experts reject the idea that any rise after a meal is harmful; what matters is knowing when a rise is normal and when it is a warning.
When we eat sugar, fruit or carbohydrate, digestion turns it into glucose, which enters the blood; the pancreas releases insulin, which moves the glucose into cells to be used for energy. Jennifer Sherr, a paediatric endocrinologist at Yale School of Medicine, explains that hard exercise can also raise blood glucose briefly, as adrenaline signals the liver to release more.
'One of the big misconceptions is that every glucose rise is harmful,' said Adrian Brown, an associate professor at University College London. Blood sugar usually peaks about an hour after a meal and returns to normal over the next two hours; with a normal metabolism such brief rises are no cause for concern. But if glucose stays high longer than expected, Sherr says, it can be a sign of insulin resistance; persistently high blood sugar raises the risk of prediabetes and type 2 diabetes and can damage the eyes, nerves and heart and lead to stroke.
For people with diabetes it is different: too little insulin, or insulin that does not work properly, can let blood sugar rise dangerously after meals, so diet, exercise and monitoring matter, and some need insulin or metformin. Nicola Guess, a dietitian and senior research fellow at the University of Oxford, notes that eating more than the body needs turns the extra calories into fat, and weight gain is a key risk factor for type 2 diabetes.
In one study of people without diabetes, blood sugar was within the healthy range 96 percent of the time. A review by Brown and colleagues found no consistent, high-quality evidence that continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) improve health in people without diabetes, and misreading the data can lead people to cut out foods unnecessarily; Sherr says the devices may help identify people at risk, but more research is needed.
Experts advise meals that combine protein, fibre-rich vegetables and healthy fats; eating protein and vegetables before carbohydrates can slow the rise in blood sugar. Cutting out carbohydrates entirely removes useful foods too, and Guess says eating them again after a long break can cause a bigger rise. The core advice is to cut down on sugar and keep a healthy weight.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
Comments
(0)