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OK to eat sugar if there's fat...?

hogweed

Member
Messages
10
Hi all, thanks for being here... I’m new to this. I've searched through the posts, and it seems that sugar is absorbed rather less slowly if there’s some fat in the dish. My personal belief, based on decades of study, is that fat is not the villain it’s painted, but I don’t know much about diabetes yet. So... does that mean that, in general, the amount of sugar one eats isn’t the important thing, but rather the speed at which it's absorbed and so “spikes” in the blood? Or will the total amount of sugar cause the damage, however slowly it’s absorbed?
 
The answer to both questions is yes. :lol:

The total carbs will effect your overall daily control, the speed at which they're absorbed will screw your immediate BG levels.

Before I say anything else, are you type 1 or 2?
 
You're right, Hogweed, it's the sugar that's the problem. Refined sugars are obviously best avoided, but the refined carbohydrates, flour, white rice etc are essentially the same thing. They are metabolised to sugar almost as fast as sugar itself, white bread being the best example. This is why many of us believe the current advice to eat a diet based on starchy carbs is lunacy.
Fat isn't the issue. The body cannot manufacture blood sugar from dietary fat and it's therefore much more benign than the media scare stories would have us believe.

All the best,

fergus
 
Hello hogweed,

The fat content of a meal will tend to slow the digestion of carbohydrate.

Complex carbohydrates (low G.I) are broken down into sugar slower than refined carbs.
This means a reduction in both blood sugar and serum insulin "spikes".

The glycemic load (G.L) takes into account G.I and also the total amount of carb in a serving.
For instance, the carbohydrate in watermelon has a high GI. But there isn't a lot of it, so watermelon's glycemic load is relatively low.

So, both the rate of absorption(G.I) and overall amount of carbohydrate will matter.

Regards,
timo.
 
well maybe not - a study published this week shows a meal high in fat may cause short term memory loss!
-induced memory loss
26 Jun 2008
A small study concludes that people with type 2 diabetes experience a temporary reduction in their memory capacity after eating a fat-heavy meal. Scientists at Baycrest, an academic health research centre in Toronto, Canada, say in a study group of 16 showed lower cognitive function ability after an unhealthy meal than after a healthier one. The results are published in Nutrition Research.

The Daily Telegraph

i have to say I havent read the whole study! So i do not know if they were low carbing - havent had time to look it up!
 
Ally,
Please be careful about posting this sort of stuff on the site. Many people are confused enough about what they should or shouldn't eat as it is. 'Studies' as small as this are inevitably flawed and don't help anyone's case. They are almost always a case of bored researchers and lazy journalists just killing time. Not very helpful.
My missus can't remember where she parked the car last night. Something tells me cutting the fat off her pork chop might not have affected that turn of events much either way. :)

A small Ediburgh study of 4 children reveals 100% of kids hate walnut whips!
63.2% of statistics are made up!

All the best,

fergus
 
Fergus said 'studies as small as this are inevitably flawed and don't help anyone's case. They are almost always a case of bored researchers and lazy journalists just killing time.'

What the research actually suggested was:

Adults with type 2 diabetes who eat unhealthy, high-fat meals may experience memory declines immediately afterward, but this can be offset by taking antioxidant vitamins with the meal http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/113099.php

It was an undergraduate research project , however the Senior author (supervisor)was Carole Greenwood. For many years she has been investigating the mechanisms of dietary induced cognitive function in rats and humans.

She condemns both high fat diets and for people with type 2 high GI carb ones.
Diets high in fat, especially trans and saturated fats, adversely affect cognition, while those high in fruits, vegetables, cereals, and fish are associated with better cognitive function and lower risk of dementia. While the precise physiologic mechanisms underlying these dietary influences are not completely understood, modulation of brain insulin activity and neuroinflammation likely contribute. Not surprisingly, deficits in cognitive functions, especially those dependent on the medial temporal lobes, are apparent in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Special care in food selection at meals should be exercised by those with T2DM since ingestion of rapidly absorbed, high–glycemic index carbohydrate foods further impairs medial temporal lobe
function,
Dietary influences on cognitive function with aging: from high-fat diets to healthful eating Parrot MD Greenwoood CE
 
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