Low-sugar diet best in high insulin secretors

TUESDAY , 20 DECEMBER 2005


NEW YORK: For overweight individuals known to secrete high levels of insulin, a diet low in sugar leads to greater weight loss than a diet high in sugar, investigators in Boston report.

However, dietary sugar load or "glycemic load" makes no difference when insulin secretion is relatively low, according to the team.

These findings, the investigators note, "offer the first evidence that simple indexes of insulin secretion may help enhance weight loss success in overweight individuals through the use of targeted dietary recommendations specific for insulin secretion status".

With insulin resistance, the body does not use the normal amount of insulin secreted by the pancreas properly, causing the pancreas to secrete more insulin.

Because both resistance to insulin and insulin secretion are involved in the regulation of body weight, Dr Anastassios G Pittas, from Tufts-New England Medical Centre, and associates theorized that dietary glycemic (sugar) load could influence the effect of a diet designed to lose weight.

To test their theory, they assigned 32 healthy overweight adults to a high-glycemic load diet (glycemic load 116 g/1000 kcal) or a low-glycemic load diet (glycemic load 45 g/1000 kcal). Calories were restricted 30 per cent compared with baseline individual energy needs for 6 months.

For those with high insulin secretion, the low glycemic load diet was associated with significantly greater weight loss than the alternative diet. Although the opposite pattern was observed among those with low insulin secretion, the results did not reach statistical significance.

The authors note that there are probably a number of mechanisms that could explain these results. High-glycemic load diets increase post-meal "hyperinsulinemia, which favours fatty acid uptake, inhibition of lipolysis, and energy storage leading to weight gain," they note.

They also suggest that a high glycemic load may also increase hunger and thus increase eating during the postabsorptive period.



http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/...57a7144,00.html

But taking in a high glycemic load will, over time, lead to insulin resistance and an associated high insulin secretion. It is better to cut the glycemic load before the insulin resistance occurs.

When I read this headline - I thought that just sounds like stating the obvious!

But I guess to all those Low fatties out there - this is something new ?

Wonder where they got these ideas? I bet they're sneaking a peek at DANDR with a flashlight under the covers at night.

Agree and disagree;

Agree in that those who are predisposed will develop problems in time. For example, my cousin was whip thin all her life, always a big eater too. Then when the "IR truck" hit her later in life (and especially when she got pregnant)
, she is now morbidly obese (both pregnancies were diabetic).
Also agree that almost all people, with or without a strong predisposition to this horrible afflicition, are generally healthier when avoiding sugar and starches.

I disagree, though, that EVERYONE will eventually develop metabolic syndrome. I think some people have a very low susceptability to it and they can avoid at least the major diseases associated even after a lifetime of high glycemic eating.
I also think caloric density of diet is an independent variable which helps "speed up" the rate that you get it, by the logic that higher calorie = higher blood sugar = higher insulin = increased resistance. So someone who is careful to eat an isocaloric diet, combined with a low genetic susceptability to metabolic syndrome, can very well skate into their golden years without any major diseases (diabetes, obesity, CHD, alzheimers so on).
People like me who have a very very poor "genetic" tolerance (I can remember hypoglycemic episodes as a child!) AND also ate a most craptacular diet... well, we won't make it passed youth without at least one or two diseases (in my case I have verified 3: obesity, PCOS, hypoglycemia).

For real.
I take for granted how obvious it is that sugar problems = low carb. To other people this is like news.

LOL! I can just imagine that.

"Although the opposite pattern was observed among those with low insulin secretion, the results did not reach statistical significance. "

Well, this might explain why successful low-fatters just can't get their heads around low carb.

LilithD, I agree.

There was that study (sorry it's on my "other" hard drive) that showed women with minimal insulin resistance did a lot better on a low fat diet compared to low carb. The difference was as much as the difference for insulin-resistant women doing better on low carb.

Thank God for pear-shaped women!