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There are a lot of hot glucose lowering strategies out there right now. Strategies like eating protein and fiber before your carbs and going for a walk after a meal. Most of these strategies are incredibly effective but they’re not all the same. Most of the glucose lowering strategies out there elicit different biochemical reactions in the body to produce their effects. So which strategies are best for you is dependent on what your body uniquely needs.
Here is an example of why personalization is so important.
Let’s say you are a 52 year old prediabetic. Your doctor tells you that you need to lower your blood sugar so you decide to start implementing a blood glucose lowering strategy you heard about where you eat protein, fat, and or fiber before your carbs to help reduce the blood sugar spike. You implement this strategy and track your numbers using a CGM and you see that it working! Your post meal blood sugar spikes are significantly smaller, your fasting blood glucose is trending in the right direction, and you’re even losing a little weight. All seems well until you go back to the doctor and see that now your cholesterol numbers are heading in the wrong direction.
What gives?
Well in this instance, the 52 year old prediabetic’s health troubles was not limited to high blood glucose. He was also dealing with hyperinsulinemia or chronically high insulin levels and thus insulin resistent.
The problem with the strategy this individual implemented is that it works through the mechanism of increasing insulin. Combining macronutrients like protein, fat, and carbs in the same meal increases the total caloric load and thus stimulated a greater insulin spike. This insulin spike is moderately effective at acutely managing blood sugar levels which is why the individual felt like they were seeing improvements when tracking their CGM data. The problem is that the mechanims of this blood sugar lowering strategy actually further contributed to their main underyling health issues: hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance.
Now the question is, was there a better strategy this individual could have followed to see better results. There always is. Keto. Keto is effective because it not only lowers blood sugar but also lowers insulin, allowing the body to actually address the underlying root cause by restoring insulin sensitivity overtime.
But outside of keto, another strategy that would have been more effective would have been to walk or exercise after a meal. This blood glucose lowering strategy primarily works by inducing the muscle to take glucose out of the blood to use for fuel and is able to do so without needing insulin. Since this individual was also dealing with hyperinsulinemia, that strategy would have been better at addressing both issues.
That doesnt mean the first strategy doesn’t have benefits or even its place. From a benefits perspective, the fact that this strategy lowers blood glucose is in it of itself beneficial since chronically elevated blood sugar is a pathology to many chronic diseases. So yes, this strategy is better than nothing. But because this individual used it as his main strategy, he was only able to slow things down or prevent them from getting much worse. Rather than address the root cause and get better.
On the who this strategy is best for. I think a lot of people are missing the boat on this being a great strategy for muscle gain. There is no doubt that glucose and insulin are incredibly effective at stimulating muscle growth. The problem with most muscle building strategies that leverage these two metabolic assets is that it creates an opportunity for prolonged elevations in blood sugar and even the development of insulin resistance.
However if you can leverage the strategy of eating protein/fat before followed by carbs alongside a solid resistance training routine, I think there is huge opportunity for solid muscle growth with limited metabolic damage.