Heavy breakfast, light dinner controls blood sugar

Eating a high energy breakfast and a low energy dinner result in better blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes, says new research

London: Eating a high energy breakfast and a low energy dinner result in better blood sugar control in people with type 2 diabetes, says new research.

"High energy intake at breakfast is associated with significant reduction in overall post-meal glucose levels in diabetic patients over the entire day," said Professor Daniela Jakubowicz from Tel Aviv University in Israel.

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The findings suggest that adjusting diet in this fashion could help optimise metabolic control and prevent complications of type 2 diabetes.

The study included 18 individuals (eight men, 10 women), with type 2 diabetes of less than 10 years duration, between ages 30-70 years.

They compared the results of high energy breakfast with low energy dinner (the B diet) with a low energy breakfast and high energy dinner diet (the D diet).

Despite the diets containing the same total energy and same calories during lunch, lunch in the B diet resulted in lower blood glucose (by 21-25 percent) and higher insulin (by 23 percent) compared with the lunch in the D diet.

"Recommending a higher energy load at breakfast, when beta cell responsiveness and insulin-mediated muscle glucose uptake are at optimal levels, seems an adequate strategy to decrease post-meal glucose spikes in patients with type 2 diabetes," said Jakubowicz.

The study appeared in the journal Diabetologia.

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