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Lower your postprandial blood sugar level

BY Berton Gladstone 2020-05-04

  It is well known that blood glucose levels after meals are the most important indicators for diagnosing diabetes and judging its therapeutic effect. However, many people do not know that postprandial blood glucose levels are also important for healthy people (non-diabetics). Choosing foods with a slower effect on raising blood sugar, and reasonable control of their food intake, can obtain lower postprandial blood sugar levels, which can prevent chronic diseases related to insulin resistance such as type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, hypertension, fatty liver, and obesity. Have important value.

   blood glucose level refers to the concentration of glucose in the blood. The glucose in the blood after a meal comes mainly from food, especially foods rich in carbohydrates (sugars), such as food, desserts, drinks, beans, fruits, etc. The starch contained in these foods as well as sucrose, fructose, lactose, glucose, maltose, etc. will be converted into glucose (blood sugar) in the blood.

   After a meal, the blood sugar level rises, stimulating the pancreas to secrete insulin, and the insulin level in the blood increases accordingly. Tests have shown that compared with fasting, insulin levels in the blood can increase 5 to 10 times after a meal. Moreover, generally (except diabetes), the higher the blood glucose level after a meal, the more insulin secretion. In other words, if the blood glucose level rises slowly after a meal, it will gently stimulate insulin secretion; but if the blood glucose level rises quickly after a meal, it will strongly stimulate insulin secretion.

  Strong stimulation of insulin secretion is not a good thing. In the long run, the pancreas will be fatigued and it is easy to cause insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is an important cause of chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and obesity. Here you can quote the wonderful metaphor of Mr. Yang Yuexin in the book "Food Glucose Generation Index". It is like if the water gate of the reservoir is raised a little, the water in the reservoir flows out slowly, smoothly and continuously; if the water gate is pulled out suddenly and quickly, the large The water will surge out, and the torrent will overwhelm or even cause damage to the dam. Therefore, taking measures to reduce postprandial blood glucose levels has important health significance.

  The level of blood sugar after a meal depends mainly on the total amount of carbohydrates (sugars) in the meal and how quickly they are digested, absorbed and converted into blood sugar.

  Under the premise of the same food source, the more carbohydrates in a meal, the higher the blood sugar level after a meal. Therefore, care should be taken to avoid ingesting a large amount of carbohydrates, that is, do not eat large amounts of foods, desserts, beverages, beans and fruits and other carbohydrate-rich foods within one meal. These foods should be evenly distributed to three meals a day (or four or five meals), and control their total amount (to prevent excessive energy and lead to obesity).

   More importantly, under the premise that the carbohydrates (sugars) are the same, some foods (such as polished rice, white noodles) are higher than others (such as whole grains, whole wheat flour) The effect of blood sugar is more intense. In nutrition, the glycemic index (GI) is used to measure the strength of various foods in raising blood sugar. For example, the test shows that the GI of rice is 83.2, the GI of small rice is 71, and the GI of black rice is 55. This shows that under the same conditions of carbohydrates, among the three types of rice, rice has the highest blood glucose, followed by small rice, and black rice has the lowest blood glucose. Even eating black rice can get much lower postprandial blood glucose levels than rice. For the GI value of various foods, please refer to the "Chinese Food Composition Table" or find it online. It is generally considered that GI < 55 is low GI food; GI > 70 is high GI food.

   The GI of a food is also related to the cooking or processing method. For the same food material, the finer the particles, the more sufficient the heating and gelatinization, the more water content, the easier to digest and absorb, the greater the GI and the stronger the increase in blood sugar. For example, corn kernels (whole grain), corn ballast and corn noodles are cooked into porridge, then corn flour porridge has the highest GI and corn kernel porridge has the lowest GI. In this way, rough processing, simple cooking, shortening the heating time, etc. help to lower the blood sugar level after a meal.

  Food mix will also affect the size of GI. When eating food alone, the GI is higher and the blood sugar rise is stronger. If it is paired with other foods rich in protein and fat, the blood sugar rise speed is significantly slowed. For example, if you eat rice alone, the GI is 83.2, if you eat rice and fish together, the GI is 37; if you eat the white bun alone, the GI is 88.1, and the white bun + celery scrambled egg has a GI of 48.6. Therefore, staple foods should not be eaten alone, and should be eaten together with some meat and vegetables to reduce blood glucose levels after meals.

   There is no doubt that the above recommendations are equally applicable to diabetics.

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