"How Does Oatmeal Help with Blood Sugars?"
It is now widely accepted that diets high in animal fat
and processed foods are an important risk factor
for development of type 2 diabetes.
And it’s not just animal fat, but animal protein intake
intensiﬁes insulin resistance,
which predisposes people to type 2 diabetes.
No wonder studies have shown that elevated consumption
of animal products and low intake of unprocessed plant foods
increases the risk of not only cardiovascular disease but diabetes.
But of all the whole plant foods to pick, why choose oatmeal
to treat diabetes, which, as I discussed in my last video,
was used for the treatment of diabetes before insulin was discovered.
We’ve long known that higher consumption of whole grains, including oats,
is associated with a lower risk of diabetes, but you don’t know...
until you put it to the test.
There have been over a dozen randomized controlled trials
looking at the metabolic effects
of oats intake in patients with type 2 diabetes,
and oats were found to significantly improve
both short-term blood sugar control and long-term blood sugar control
in addition to lowering cholesterol levels.
We think the benefits arise from a fermentable ﬁber in oats
called beta glucan, because you can get cholesterol-lowering
even if you just give the oat fiber straight,
as well as an improvement in blood sugar control
and insulin sensitivity in both type 2 diabetics,
as well as type 1 diabetics.
How exactly does the fiber do that?
Well, we know one of the underlying cholesterol-lowering mechanisms
of oatmeal consumption might be its microbiome-manipulating ability,
in other words, having a beneficial effect
on our intestinal bacteria.
A little fiber goes a long way.
Here, they were talking about the anti-inflammatory effects
of the short-chain fatty acids
that our good gut flora make from fiber.
There are dozens of randomized controlled trials
showing the types of fiber found in oats
and beans can improve long-term blood sugar control in diabetics—
in fact, nearly double the FDA threshold
required for new blood sugar- lowering drugs. Why?
Because the gut bacteria selectively promoted by dietary fiber intake
can help alleviate type 2 diabetes.
In fact, on the basis of 50 distinct bacterial markers of the feces,
you can tell who does and does not have diabetes.
But change your diet, and you can change
your gut flora within one day.
We feed them with fiber, and in return,
they feed us right back with these short-chain fatty acids
like butyrate that have all these wonderful effects.
Put people on a diet packed with oats, beans, fruits, vegetables, and nuts,
and the number of fiber-feeders
churning out the beneficial short- chain fatty acids shoots up,
and fasting diabetic blood sugars drop about 25 percent within one month.
And the more fiber- feeders they fostered,
the better their blood sugar control.
When the fiber-promoted short-chain fatty acid producers
were present in greater diversity and abundance,
participants had better improvement in their hemoglobin A1c levels
(which is a measure of longer-term blood sugar control).
Then, before and after fecal transplant studies
helped nail down cause and effect.
The oat fiber itself has been shown to act as a prebiotic,
boosting the growth of beneficial bacteria
like lactobacillus and bifidobacteria.
So, between the lack of animal protein,
lack of animal fat,
and bursting at the seams with prebiotic fiber,
it’s no wonder that oatmeal diets grew to become
part of the clinical routine in the treatment of diabetics.
However, over time, this practice
has later become increasingly forgotten,
a disappearance that’s been compared to the fate
of unpopular theories in successive editions
of Soviet encyclopedias.
Despite advances in therapy, we still have many people
with poorly controlled diabetes.
Thankfully this forgotten tool is back.
I’ll review all the new oatmeal diet studies next.