Protein and Insulin Levels

[klawrence34]

Protein and fat rich foods may induce substantial insulin secretion. Research in which study subjects served as their own controls, for example, has shown that under fasting conditions a quarter pound of beef raises insulin levels in diabetics as much as a quarter pound of straight sugar.

Foods like cheese and beef elevated insulin levels higher than "dreaded" high-carbohydrate foods like pasta. A single burger's worth of beef, or three slices of cheddar, boosts insulin levels more than almost 2 cups of cooked pasta. In fact a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that meat, compared to the amount of blood sugar it releases, seems to cause the most insulin secretion of any food tested.

In another study researchers took over a hundred pairs of identical twins and found that the more fat they ate, the higher their resting insulin levels were. Even with the same genes, the study showed a consistent pattern of higher fasting insulin levels with intake of high-fat, low carbohydrate diets.

Other studies show that a high (70-85%) carbohydrate diet (combined with walking an average of 15-30 minutes a day) not only can result in significant reductions in body weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides, but significant drops in baseline insulin levels as well.
In just three weeks on a high (unrefined) carb vegetarian diet and a few minutes of daily walking, diabetics reduced the amount of insulin they needed and most of the pre-diabetics seemed cured of their insulin resistance. In general vegetarians may have half the insulin levels of nonvegetarians even at the same weight.


American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1997):1264.
Diabetes care 7(1984):465.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 50(1997):1264.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 50(1997):1264.
Diabetes Care 16(1993):1459
American Journal of Cardiology 69(1992):440.
Metabolism 43(1994):621.

[trans4mation2005]

when i sit down and have a nice two lb steak, and measure my blood sugar 2 hours later... since i am diabetic.. i notice that the number is around 85..if i eat any carbs my blood sugars go as high as 500.. steak.. its whats for dinner!!

[Matt]

never noticed that myself.. i eat tons of protein and my BS never goes over 90, if that.

[Lucky4]

hmmm, though we recently had something like this article. I don't care what the studies say, pure protein on an empty stomach does NOT raise blood sugar like eating high carb stuff or pop--on ME. Repeat.....ON ME, I can't speak for others. Now, if there are people out there that this happens to, I would certainly like to meet them because they are very unusual. One way I can prove this on myself is when my blood sugar goes down--usually during times of ketosis when I don't feel like eating much. When that nervous energy comes and I start shaking, thinking I can eat the entire fridge, I normally reach for sugary things (by nature) to get my levels back up again. Since LCing, my blood sugar went down twice so, being the loyal person I am to LC, I ate protein and/or fat. It didn't help and took HOURS for me to finally feel okay. If this beef story was true, my blood sugar would have been up in no time. Also, if it was true, I would be diabetic by now since I eat a lot of protein--and somedays little else. I still would like to see these people who claim the opposite

[Sue1975]

Agree with you totally, my doctor put me on diabetes medicines recently, the sustained release insulin kinds, and I have since then, had several episodes of hypoglycemia. (I hope I spelled it right).

I switched to Atkins after being put on diabetes medicines and so ate LC to overcome the problem, it took me a good long sleep of a couple of hours to get over it.

If I's had chocolet, am sure it would have had instant results.

I'd just like to say that nobody really understands this metabolism thing very well. However, Atkins does work. So even if high insulin was observed in some respected studies after eating meat, Atkins still shows results, even if the science might be wrong, the results are right.

[idioglossic]

Originally Posted by klawrence34

Protein and fat rich foods may induce substantial insulin secretion. Research in which study subjects served as their own controls, for example, has shown that under fasting conditions a quarter pound of beef raises insulin levels in diabetics as much as a quarter pound of straight sugar.

Foods like cheese and beef elevated insulin levels higher than "dreaded" high-carbohydrate foods like pasta. A single burger's worth of beef, or three slices of cheddar, boosts insulin levels more than almost 2 cups of cooked pasta. In fact a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that meat, compared to the amount of blood sugar it releases, seems to cause the most insulin secretion of any food tested.

In another study researchers took over a hundred pairs of identical twins and found that the more fat they ate, the higher their resting insulin levels were. Even with the same genes, the study showed a consistent pattern of higher fasting insulin levels with intake of high-fat, low carbohydrate diets.

Other studies show that a high (70-85%) carbohydrate diet (combined with walking an average of 15-30 minutes a day) not only can result in significant reductions in body weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides, but significant drops in baseline insulin levels as well.
In just three weeks on a high (unrefined) carb vegetarian diet and a few minutes of daily walking, diabetics reduced the amount of insulin they needed and most of the pre-diabetics seemed cured of their insulin resistance. In general vegetarians may have half the insulin levels of nonvegetarians even at the same weight.


American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (1997):1264.
Diabetes care 7(1984):465.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 50(1997):1264.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 50(1997):1264.
Diabetes Care 16(1993):1459
American Journal of Cardiology 69(1992):440.
Metabolism 43(1994):621.

Where was the study? How many people were in it? what do the above papers have to do with the study?

[Diana]

I don't buy it. Every book I have ever read, and every study I have ever read shows that Protein does not raise the BS. If eating a steak was like eating Pasta, we would not be losing weight

[mephy]

I have severe reactive hypoglycemia. With protein and fat throughout the day, my blood sugars are nice and steady. I never spike and crash. If I ate too many carbs, however, I'd be having some severe episodes.

IOW, I don't buy it. The study is missing too much information. I'm sure someone can come up with one showing opposite results.

[griffin]

matt are you diabetic? also protein dosent raise mine either.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by griffin

matt are you diabetic? also protein dosent raise mine either.

i havent been diagnosed, but lately it has been running low.. its like i cant keep it at normal levels. My fasting levels are about 70 and like i said ive NEVER seen it get over 95. Im going to go to the endo to see what she says.

[lovelyliz]

So if carbs raise insulin levels, and Protein raises insulin levels, and FAT raises insulin levels, WHAT ON EARTH DO THEY SUGGEST PEOPLE EAT? I don't buy it either.

[ieatlowcarb]

Actually what the article said is that it raises insulin production which would actually result in LOWER blood sugar. Thats why when a person's blood sugar is too high they take insulin.

This study is bad news if its true for people with low blood sugar (hypoglycemia).

[Meowser]

Originally Posted by Matt

i havent been diagnosed, but lately it has been running low.. its like i cant keep it at normal levels. My fasting levels are about 70 and like i said ive NEVER seen it get over 95. Im going to go to the endo to see what she says.

Are you having bad symptoms? Low blood sugar (with no bad symptoms) is a good thing.

[trans4mation2005]

matt ..protein lowers blood sugars.. hypoglycemia is the reverse of diabetes.. diffenrent side of same disease... u should get that checked out..u might be better on some higher carbs.. and more frequent meals...eating more protein lowers your already low blood sugars...

[Tater Head]

The study doesn't say if they were eating carbs with the high protein and fat. I don't buy it either, why would my Endo doctor put me on 30 net carb a day if that were true, smells like the PCRM group is involed some how in this study.

[smileybrunette]

According to "Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution" this has to be absolutely false. He is a prominent diabetes doctor who has diabetes I himself since an early age, and has proven on himself exactly what raises insulin and what does not. He was able to cure his own kidney failure (which came on after following his doctor's advise from a young age on what to eat, which included a lot of carbs) by using low-carb and measuring his blood levels. He kept his exact measurements on everything he ate, and he treats primarily diabetic or pre-diabetic patients using his findings, while constantly testing patients to make sure they are doing well on low-carb. He lists the foods that will or will not raise insulin levels in his book. He has it down to a science because the whole thrust of his treatment is to keep insulin levels and blood-sugar levels from spiking to prevent damage to organs and arteries. Btw, he is in his seventies, and would have died at a much earlier age if he hadn't controlled his own insulin spikes by way of low-carb.

There is one possible explanation for the findings of the testing in that article, which Dr. Bernstein mentions in his book, and that is that if you stuff yourself to the max at any one meal, even just veggies and protein, you will cause your blood sugar to go up and consequently your insulin. So he recommends not overeating at any one meal.

[zoes_mama]

My mom's diabetic, so she's testing all the time... this "study" is crap! When she LC's all her numbers are under control... when she goes off plan, her numbers are haywire!

Likewise, just in my own personal experience... I have low blood sugar... if I eat a steak, I have even sustained energy and clear mental function... if I eat comparable carbs, it's like I'm DRUNK I'm so lethargic and stupid!

Me and my family? We're sticking with protein!

[nobimbo]

Insulin levels can rise even if blood sugar doesn't. There have been some studies about this showing that certain protein sources (meat, cheese) actually raise insulin as much as or more than certain carbs. Some researchers came up with something called the Insulin Index, which is similar to the Glycemic Index (while many foods that are low on the glycemic index are also low on the insulin index, that doesn't always hold true). Dave Mendosa discusses this on his diabetes website:

Insulin Index
By David Mendosa

The research on the insulin index of foods is intriguing but limited. Only 16 peer-reviewed articles in MEDLINE even mention the term "insulin index," and only one of them actually reports the results of food comparisons. By comparison, 244 peer-reviewed articles mention the glycemic index.

They…found that glycemic and insulin scores were highly correlated.
That study is "An Insulin Index of Foods: The Insulin Demand Generated by 1000-kJ Portions of Common Foods" in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 1997, Vol. 66: pages 1264-1276 by Susanne HA Holt, Janette C. Brand Miller, and Peter Petocz. The three co-authors were then associated with the University of Sydney in Australia. Susanne Holt was then a graduate student working under the supervision of Janette Brand Miller, and Peter Petocz provided statistical support. Subsequently, Ms. Holt—now Dr. Susanna Holt—obtained her Ph.D. degree and is directs the Glycemic Index Research Service (SUGiRS) in the University of Sydney's department of biochemistry. Ms. Brand Miller—now Professor Jennie Brand-Miller—directs glycemic index research at the University of Sydney's department of biochemistry.

They tested only 38 foods and found that glycemic and insulin scores were highly correlated. There most interesting finding was that "protein-rich foods and bakery products (rich in fat and refined carbohydrate) elicited insulin responses that were disproportionately higher than their glycemic responses."

One J.S. Coleman finds the insulin index to be superior to the glycemic index. Comparing the insulin index study cited above with glycemic index studies, the Insulin Index article states that "their food choice method is more realistic, and their method more thorough than the GI method."

What that author apparently fails to realize was that the leading researchers of the glycemic index and the insulin index are the same people. Here is what Professor Brand-Miller has to say about the insulin index in the latest version of her best-selling book, The New Glucose Revolution (New York: Marlowe and Company, 2003, pages 57-58:

While it's clear that the insulin demand exerted by foods is important for long-term health, it doesn't necessarily follow that we need an insulin index of foods instead of a glycemic index. When both have been tested together, the glycemic index is extremely good at predicting the food's insulin index. In other words, a low-GI food has a low insulin index value and a high-GI food has a high insulin index value. Furthermore, the level of glucose in the blood is directly related to adverse reactions such as protein glycosylation (linkages between glucose and protein) and oxidative molecules.
There are some instances, however, where a food has a low glycemic value but a high insulin index value. This applies to dairy foods and to some highly palatable energy-dense "indulgence foods." Some foods (such as meat, fish, and eggs) that contain no carbohydrate, just protein and fat (and essentially have a GI value of zero), still stimulate significant rises in blood insulin.

At the present time, we don't know how to interpret this type of response (low glycemia, high insulinemia) for long-term health. It may be a good outcome because the rise in insulin has contributed to the low level of glycemia. On the other hand, it may be not-so-good, because the increased demand for insulin contributes to beta-cell "exhaustion" and the development of type 2 diabetes. Until studies are carried out to answer these types of questions, the glycemic index remains a proven tool for predicting the effects of food on health.

The following table shows how the glycemic scores and insulin index of these 38 foods compare. Note that here the glycemic scores are based on white bread set to equal 100, although the now more common glycemic index sets glucose to be to equal 100.

Especially note that glycemic scores differ in other ways from the glycemic index. "It's important to discriminate between glycemic index values—for 50 gram-carbohydrate portions of foods—and glycemic scores—for 1000 kJ portions of foods," the lead author of the study, Dr. Susanna Holt, writes me.

"In the insulin index study, we measured glycemic scores and insulin scores for 1000 kJ portions of foods. They are not GI values. In a healthy person that has fasted for more than 10-12 hours overnight, cheese and steak can cause a small rise in blood glucose in the second hour of our 2 hour test periods due to gluconeogenesis. Also the normal fluctuations in blood glucose around the fasting value that our experiments start from produce some area above the fasting blood glucose level , which is used to calculate both GI and glycemic score values."

Click on this link to see a listing of foods and their corresponding insulin index:

http://www.mendosa.com/insulin_index.htm

[RubyJ]

Karen,
After I and several others on this board kept debunking your anti-low carb and anti-meat posts, you said you were going to stop posting here. I've noticed that you did stop the anti-meat stuff until now.

I've asked you many times to please post links to where you get your information so people can check the source. I tried looking up some of these articles but it's not easy with the limited info in this article. These are complex scientific articles and all I could read were the abstracts for two of them, but it seems to me that this article really simplified what was going on in these studies to suit an agenda.
Here's the last sentence of one of the abstracts:
"These data indicate that protein given with glucose will increase insulin secretion and reduce the plasma glucose rise in at least some type II diabetic persons."
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi...alcode=diacare

Seems to me that says that giving glucose increases insulin with or without protein. It's easy to pick and choose data to support anything you wish. Please post the link to the original article so we can see who the author is and where it was published.

[KLS]

Sounds to me this 'study' was sanctioned by the candy and dessert companies.

[Blondyi40]

Originally Posted by RubyJ

Karen,
After I and several others on this board kept debunking your anti-low carb and anti-meat posts, you said you were going to stop posting here. I've noticed that you did stop the anti-meat stuff until now.

I've asked you many times to please post links to where you get your information so people can check the source. I tried looking up some of these articles but it's not easy with the limited info in this article. These are complex scientific articles and all I could read were the abstracts for two of them, but it seems to me that this article really simplified what was going on in these studies to suit an agenda.
Here's the last sentence of one of the abstracts:
"These data indicate that protein given with glucose will increase insulin secretion and reduce the plasma glucose rise in at least some type II diabetic persons."
http://care.diabetesjournals.org/cgi...alcode=diacare

Seems to me that says that giving glucose increases insulin with or without protein. It's easy to pick and choose data to support anything you wish. Please post the link to the original article so we can see who the author is and where it was published.

[Rigel434]

I think some of you folks are confusing blood sugar and insulin. They are two entirely different things. Even that article acknowledges that meats and proteins have a very low glycemic index rating, which means they produce little if any rise in blood sugar. But apparently eating meats does cause INSULIN levels to rise in at least the folks in that study- that's different than causing blood glucose to rise.

Insulin is basically the transport mechanism for carrying glucose/sugar to calls. What the effect of the higher insulin levels is, I'm not sure, but I've always been led to believe that the damage caused by diabetes was from the high blood sugar levels damaging body organs.

[Matt]

okay all this time i thought insulin WAS blood sugar.. maybe i am actually eating too much protein and thats causing my blood sugar to go so low? because i am eating 40/40/20 carbs/protein/fat. im going to eat less protein tomorrow.. going to eat 50/30/20 and see if my BS still stays low

[Lucky4]

Insulin is what comes in when you eat too much sugar, starch etc and wipes it all out-leaving you with lowered blood sugar--diabetes is when the insulin quits working and insulin resistance is when the cells stop reacting to the insulin to open up and let the sugar in (if mistaken) please correct me. Still, if this article is true, then no one would lose weight on a LC diet because the insulin levels would be so high all the time (from the protein) that the fat would get stored rather than burnt or energy (insulin is the fat-storing hormone). And, we'd also have the barage of ailments resulting from too much insulin. We would not be able to get into ketosis either--again correct me if wrong. There is so much complexity to this hormone thing--I still don't think anyone has really figured it out.
Matt, it is true that too much protein could get stored as fat--and maybe raise insulin levels--but your percentages look pretty good to me

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Lucky4

Insulin is what comes in when you eat too much sugar, starch etc and wipes it all out-leaving you with lowered blood sugar--diabetes is when the insulin quits working and insulin resistance is when the cells stop reacting to the insulin to open up and let the sugar in (if mistaken) please correct me. Still, if this article is true, then no one would lose weight on a LC diet because the insulin levels would be so high all the time (from the protein) that the fat would get stored rather than burnt or energy (insulin is the fat-storing hormone). And, we'd also have the barage of ailments resulting from too much insulin. We would not be able to get into ketosis either--again correct me if wrong. There is so much complexity to this hormone thing--I still don't think anyone has really figured it out.
Matt, it is true that too much protein could get stored as fat--and maybe raise insulin levels--but your percentages look pretty good to me

yesi just tried it this AM with breakfast, i ate a lot less protein and things were actually worse. after i got done at the gym i was about to pass out any my BS was 45. back to 40/40/20 for me.. going to the endo in a couple days hopefully.

[griffin]

be careful matt, 45 is very low, keep a snack with you, to keep you perked if you feel bad

[Diabeticmom2004]

I start feeling yucky if my sugars get low 70. 50 will wake me up out of a sound sleep. My head will hurt and stomach cramps.

[Blondyi40]

Originally Posted by Matt

yesi just tried it this AM with breakfast, i ate a lot less protein and things were actually worse. after i got done at the gym i was about to pass out any my BS was 45. back to 40/40/20 for me.. going to the endo in a couple days hopefully.

Matt why have u changed ur WOE? What made you change it and how many carbs are you eating a day?
Linda

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Blondyi40

Matt why have u changed ur WOE? What made you change it and how many carbs are you eating a day?
Linda

wanted more energy so i could be able to lift weights and put on a few pounds because im just wilting away, got down to 138 pounds. So far im up to almost 200 carbs and around 2100 calories with no problems. *knock on wood* i still eat low glycemic however, which is related to low carb in a way.

[Resolved2Achieve]

I like the study on chocolate and good it is for you....;-)