High energy breakfast with low energy dinner helps control blood sugar with type II diabetes

Adjusting diet could help optimise metabolic control and prevent complications of type II diabetes

A small new study published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) shows that, in people with type II diabetes, those who consume a high energy breakfast and a low energy dinner have better blood sugar control than those who eat a low energy breakfast and a high energy dinner. The authors of the study include Professor Daniela Jakubowicz and Professor Julio Wainstein, Wolfson Medical Center, Tel Aviv University, Israel, Professor Bo Ahren, Lund University, Sweden and Professor Oren Froy Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

Previous work by this group has shown that high energy breakfast with low energy dinner (the B diet) reduced post-meal blood glucose spikes (post-prandial glycaemia) in obese non-diabetic individuals, when compared with a low energy breakfast and high energy dinner diet (the D diet). This new randomised study included 18 individuals (eight men, 10 women), with type II diabetes of less than 10 years duration, an age range 30-70 years, body mass index (BMI) 22-35 kg/m2, and treated with metformin and/or dietary advice (eight patients with diet alone and 10 with diet and metformin). Patients were randomised to either the B diet or the D diet daily for one week. The B diet contained 2946 kilojoule (kj) breakfast, 2523 kj lunch, and 858kj dinner. The D diet contained the same total energy but arranged differently: 858 kj breakfast, 2523 kj lunch, and 2946 kj dinner. The larger of the two meals included milk, tuna, a granola bar, scrambled egg, yoghurt and cereal, while the smaller meal contained sliced turkey breast, mozzarella, salad and coffee.

Breakfast was taken at 0800H AM, lunch at 1300H PM, and dinner at 1900H PM. Patients consumed their diets at home for six days before the sampling day. On the 7th day (sampling day), each group consumed their assigned meal plan in the clinic, and blood samples were collected just before breakfast (0 min) and at 15, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 min after eating commenced. Post-meal levels of glucose were measured in each participant, as well as levels of insulin, c-peptide, and glucagon-like-peptide 1 hormone. Two weeks later, patients were crossed over to the other diet plan, and the tests repeated.

The results showed that post-meal glucose levels were 20 per cent lower and levels of insulin, C-peptide and GLP-1 were 20 per cent higher in participants on the B diet compared with 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 per cent) and higher insulin (by 23 per cent) compared with the lunch in the D diet.

EP News Bureau – Mumbai