"The Benefits of Millet for Diabetes"
How does millet come to the help of diabetics?
A substantial portion of the starch in millet is resistant starch,
meaning resistant to digestion in our small intestine,
so providing a bounty for the good bugs in our colon.
Here’s how the various millets do, all way more than more common
grains like rice or wheat, but proso and kodo millet lead the pack.
What’s going on? The protein matrix in millet not only acts
as a physical barrier but actually also partially sequesters
your starch-munching enzyme, and the millet polyphenols
also can act as starch blockers in and of themselves.
Millet also has markedly slower stomach emptying times
than other starchy foods. If you eat white rice, boiled potatoes,
or pasta, your stomach takes about an hour to digest it,
before starting to slowly dump it into your intestines,
and two or three hours to empty about half-way.
Whereas you eat sorghum or millet, and stomach emptying
doesn’t even start until two or three hours
and may take five hours to empty even halfway.
Note this was for both a thick millet porridge
and for just millet couscous.
Since the non-viscous millet couscous meal was also equally slow
in emptying, this suggests that there may just be something
about millet itself that helps slow stomach emptying,
which should blunt the blood sugar spike.
But you don’t know...until you put it to the test.
And indeed, millet caused about a 20% lower surge in blood sugar
than the same amount of carbs in the form of rice.
Remember how excited I was to show you how it only took the body
like half the insulin to handle sorghum compared to a grain like corn?
Well, millet did even better.
Give a group of prediabetics only about three-quarters of a cup
of millet a day, and within six weeks their insulin resistance
dropped so much their prediabetic fasting blood sugars
turned into non- prediabetic blood sugars.
This so-called “self- controlled” clinical trial,
the same subjects before and after, is just a sneaky way
of saying an uncontrolled trial.
There was no control group that didn’t add the millet
or added something else.
And we know just being in a study under scrutiny
can cause people to eat better in other ways.
So, we don’t know what role, if any, the millet itself played.
What we need is a randomized, controlled crossover trial
where the same people eat both a millet-containing
and non-millet containing diet and see which works better.
And here we go! A randomized, crossover study having
hundreds of patients both do an American Diabetes Association-type
diet with and without about one and one-third cup of millet every day,
and… the millet-based diet lowered hemoglobin A1C levels,
meaning an improvement in long-term blood sugar control,
along with some side benefits like lowering cholesterol.
The target for good blood sugar control recommended
by the American Diabetes Association is an A1C less than 7.
They started out at 8.37, but after a few months on millet,
dropped it to an average of 6.77.
Is it just because they lost weight or something?
No, suggesting that it was an effect specific to the millet.
But they didn’t just give millet.
They mixed the millet with split black lentils and spices,
and we know from dozens of randomized,
controlled experimental trials in people with and without diabetes
that the consumption of pulses (meaning beans, split peas,
chickpeas, or lentils) can improve long-term measures
of blood sugar control like A1C levels.
So, while the researchers conclude that millets have the potential
for a protective role in the management of diabetes,
a more accurate conclusion might be a mix of millet and lentils
can be protective, though hey, maybe the spices helped too.
They didn’t say which ones they used, and I couldn’t get ahold
of the authors, but a similar study done by one of the same researchers
included about a tablespoon a day of a mixture of fenugreek, coriander,
cumin, and black pepper, with a fifth spice, perhaps cinnamon or turmeric.