Tue, Sep-26-17, 03:51
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Senior Member
Posts: 15,075
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Plan: mostly milkfat
Stats: 190/152.4/154
BF:
Progress: 104%
Location: Ontario
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https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas...70411104441.htm
I find it a bit funny that stevia gets a pass so often in the low carb and ketogenic community. Other sweeteners are accused of increasing insulin, meanwhile the most vigorous research showing a sweetener increasing insulin is with stevia. Lots of researchers go so far as to suggest increased insulin release as a benefit of stevia. I don't actually worry about this, I use stevia myself.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releas...70411104441.htm
Quote:
Researchers unravel how stevia controls blood sugar levels
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Quote:
Stevia extract is very popular as a non-caloric substitute for sugar. The plant-based sweetener is also believed to have a positive effect on blood sugar levels, although nobody understood why. Koenraad Philippaert and Rudi Vennekens from the KU Leuven Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine have now revealed the underlying mechanism. They collaborated with other KU Leuven scientists and with researchers from Université catholique de Louvain and University of Oxford.
"Our experiments have shown that the active components of stevia extract, stevioside and steviol, stimulate the ion channel TRPM5," Dr Philippaert explains. "The proteins known as ion channels are a kind of microscopic pathway through which minuscule charged particles enter and leave the cell." These channels are behind many processes in the body."
"TRPM5 is first and foremost essential for the taste perception of sweet, bitter, and umami on the tongue," Philippaert continues. "The taste sensation is made even stronger by the stevia component steviol, which stimulates TRPM5. This explains the extremely sweet flavour of stevia as well as its bitter aftertaste."
TRPM5 also ensures that the pancreas releases enough insulin, for instance after a meal. Therefore, it helps prevent abnormally high blood sugar levels and the development of type 2 diabetes. This condition develops if the pancreas releases insufficient amounts of insulin, often as a result of an unhealthy lifestyle.
"If mice consume a high-fat diet for a long period of time they eventually develop diabetes," Professor Vennekens explains. "But this is less the case for mice that also receive a daily dose of stevioside: they are protected against diabetes. Stevia did not have this protective effect on mice without TRPM5. This indicates that the protection against abnormally high blood sugar levels and diabetes is due to the stimulation of TRPM5 with stevia components."
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This isn't to say, stevia increases insulin, so is bad.
From the study itself;
Quote:
In perifusion experiments, we analysed the effect of steviol on the dynamics of GIIS (Fig. 4d,e; Supplementary Fig. 5). Steviol supplementation has no effect in low glucose. The 10 mM GIIS displays a rapid peak phase (phase 1), and a more sustained level of insulin release (phase 2). Insulin secretion during both phases is increased in the continuous presence of steviol
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https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14733#discussion
Type II diabetics have a poor or absent first phase insulin response. The first phase insulin response helps the body to prepare, makes it more insulin sensitive while the nutrients from a meal are being absorbed. So while if you keep glucose artificially elevated as in this experiment, steviol might increase both phase 1 and phase 2 insulin, in the body, if phase 1 insulin increases insulin sensitivity, more efficient glucose clearance is likely to mean that less insulin will need to be secreted in phase 2.
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