“Glucose affects how we feel instantly, because it influences how hungry we are and how we feel, and a lot of things fall into place once we get it under control.” This is explained by Jessie Inchauspé, biochemist and researcher, with a degree in mathematics from King’s College, London, and a master’s degree in biochemistry from Georgetown University. She has been studying the effect of food on health for years and doing outreach.
His first book, The Glucose Revolution, was an international bestseller translated into 40 languages, and he has now published The Glucose Revolution as well. The method (Diana), where she proposes to the reader to mark four weeks to get used to the habits that will restore our energy. “If you have food cravings, chronic fatigue, or always wake up tired, you may have glucose spikes. The majority of the population is trapped in a roller coaster of sugar ups and downs ”, says Inchauspé this Friday in “La contra” of La Vanguardia, where he proposes as a daily habit to always have a salty breakfast and take a spoonful of vinegar.
As we explained in RAC1.cat based on the researcher’s books, if we have unbalanced glucose levels we get fat, our hormones skyrocket, we feel tired, we want to eat sugar, our skin suffers, our heart suffers… To have better health, explains this researcher, it is necessary to reduce glucose curves. And one way to do it, in addition to watching what we eat, is to control the order of food, and eat it in the proper order.
A 2015 Cornell University study explained that two meals with the same foods can have very different impacts on our body, depending on the order in which we eat their components.
Researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College found that eating protein and vegetables before carbohydrates leads to lower glucose and insulin levels after meals in obese patients with type 2 diabetes. This discovery makes it possible for doctors to advise patients diabetics and other high-risk people the best order to eat their food.
“Unfortunately, we have found that it is difficult to get people to change their eating habits,” said lead author Dr. Louis Aronne, a professor of metabolic research at Weill Cornell Medical College. “Carbohydrates increase blood sugar, but if you tell someone not to eat, or to cut back drastically, it’s hard for them to comply. This study points to an easier way for patients to lower their blood sugar and insulin levels.”
The researchers looked at a whole, typically Western meal, with a good mix of vegetables, protein, carbohydrates, and fat. They worked with 11 patients, all obese and with type 2 diabetes, who were taking an oral drug called metformin that helps control glucose levels. They had the patients eat a meal consisting of carbohydrates, protein, vegetables, and fat twice, on separate days a week.
The results showed that glucose levels were much lower when vegetables and protein were eaten before carbohydrates. This finding confirms that the order in which we eat food is important and points to a new way to effectively control glucose levels after meals in diabetic patients.
Therefore, to avoid sugar spikes, the correct order to eat food would be: protein, fat, starch, and sugar last. In this way, glucose peaks can be reduced by 73% and insulin peaks by 48%. It would be advisable to eat the fruit at the end of meals because it is considered to be sugar (because they contain fiber but above all glucose, fructose and sucrose).
Inchauspé talks about the order of food, but also makes many other recommendations to reduce blood sugar and feel better. One of his tips is to move after meals. “Moving ten minutes after eating is a very powerful trick to flatten glucose curves, and for this we should not change anything we eat. Also, if you are one of those people who have a “food coma” (the feeling of tiredness after to eat), this trick will be very good for you”.
