Diabetes can be a killer, causing heart and vascular problems – and now scientists think they know why. Diabetics are likely to be deficient in thiamine (vitamin B1), and it is this that makes diabetes – both types I and II – such a serious condition.
Researchers from Warwick University have found that diabetics have a 75 per cent deficiency of thiamine in their blood plasma, a lack that has been missed by the standard blood test.
It’s not that diabetics are taking any less B1 in their diet than healthy individuals, it’s more to do with the fact that their diabetes is rapidly moving the thiamine from the blood and into the urine.
Low thiamine levels can cause problems in endothelial cells, which line the body’s entire circulatory system, and which can lead to an increased risk of atherosclerosis, or chronic inflammation of the artery walls.
Source: Diabetologia, 2007
Men, eat your whole grains. Especially if you’re middle-aged or older, and you want to decrease your risk of getting Type II diabetes.
Increasing your intake of whole grains will help, says a study in the issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Eating whole grains might even help compensate for other risks. Obesity increases the risk of Type II diabetes, but men in the study who were obese but physically active and who also had a high intake of whole grains had a 52 percent lower risk of diabetes than did inactive obese men who did not eat many whole grains.
According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, 17 million Americans have diabetes, and 5.9 million are as yet undiagnosed. Most have Type II diabetes, in which the body does not produce enough insulin or the body’s cells ignore the insulin.
Researchers speculate the high fiber content of the bran fraction of whole grains slows down gastric emptying, and thus slows down the release of glucose into the bloodstream. That, in turn, reduces the insulin response after meals and the risk of developing diabetes.
Whole grain foods also have more magnesium than refined grain foods, and that has been shown to improve the response of insulin, too.
“The insulin level in the blood tends to be more stable,” Fung says, “and it doesn’t peak as high, and that might have something to do with reducing the risk.”
As good as whole grains are, most Americans don’t eat nearly enough. Recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2000 suggest that several of the recommended six to 11 servings of grain per day be whole grains.
“About half of all grains [eaten] should be whole grains,” Fung says. Depending on a person’s size and caloric needs, that means at least three servings a day of whole grains, she says.
The new study provides reinforcement for what nutrition and diabetes experts have known for some time, says a certified diabetes educator at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
“This is something we’ve known all along is a good thing,” says Karen Chalmers, director of nutrition at the center.
In addition to cutting your diabetes risk, whole grains fill you up and may make it easier to lose weight. “We stress fiber as a way to lose weight,” she says.
To boost whole grain intake, Fung suggests reading labels on food products and looking for ingredients such as “whole wheat,” or buying food products such as oatmeal, brown rice or whole grain pastas.
Source: paktribune.com