Blood Glucose Levels and Whole Grain Foods, What’s the Connection?

Blood glucose levels and whole grain foods, what's the link between these two? They say, eating whole grain foods is a good way to avoid type 2 diabetes. Now a review has proven that a diet rich in unrefined grains does indeed reduce the risk to develop diabetes. There is a need for more research though to confirm this finding.

Marion Priebe, the chief review author said the proof is weak so they cannot make a firm conclusion that whole grain foods protect one from developing type 2 diabetes. The decrease in the whole grains intake for the last ten years coincided with the increase in type 2 diabetes leading to the theory of the link between the two. They also wanted to find out if whole grain foods will help lower the blood glucose levels.

Professionals at the University Medical Center Groningen's Center for Medical Biomics in the Netherlands led by Priebe, who is the epidemiologist and nutritionist there, reviewed twelve studies that worked on the connection between type 2 diabetes and whole grains consumption.

What the researchers did was this. They followed people without diabetes to find out whether those who ate meals rich in whole grains had less chance of developing the disease than those who did not. The results of the studies were consistent in the sense that the risk to develop diabetes was reduced for those who consumed whole grain foods.

However, two of the studies that dealt with the link between weight and whole grain intake had only improved slightly the risk to develop type 2 diabetes. There was only one controlled trial and the eleven were prospective studies so there's a need for more randomized controlled studies
that will give a more definitive conclusion.

In another study two groups of overweight adults were randomly assigned to eat one of two diets. Both were given 55% of total calories from carbohydrates, 30% from fat and 15% from protein but in one diet the grain products were made from whole grains while the other one was made from refined white flour.

The scientists found that the diet with the whole grain helped control the blood insulin levels better. In addition, the researchers found that the same group of participants who had the whole grain diet were able to metabolize better their blood glucose levels.