Whey helps diabetics control blood sugar

London: Controlling blood sugar levels may be a lot easier for diabetics as researchers have discovered that consuming whey protein before a regular breakfast reduces the blood sugar spikes seen after meals.

Whey also improves the body's insulin response.

“Whey protein may, therefore, represent a novel approach for enhancing glucose-lowering strategies in type-2 diabetes," the researchers noted.

The study included 15 people with well-controlled type-2 diabetes who were not taking any medications except for sulfonylureas or metformin (oral diabetes drugs).

Testing participants with type-2 diabetes, 180 minutes after their meal, researchers found that glucose levels were reduced by 28 percent after whey protein pre-load compared with no whey protein.

Also, the early insulin response (meaning within the first 30 minutes following breakfast) was 96 percent higher after whey protein than without.

"In summary, consumption of whey protein shortly before a high-glycaemic-index breakfast increased the early and late post-meal insulin secretion, improved GLP-1 responses and reduced post-meal blood sugar levels in type-2 diabetic patients,” said the authors of the study.

The research was conducted in Israel by Daniela Jakubowicz and Julio Wainstein (Wolfson Medical Center, Tel Aviv University), Oren Froy (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Bo Ahrén (Lund University, Sweden) and colleagues.

The research was published in the journal Diabetologia, the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes.