New research has found that, for people with diabetes, eating to match your biological clock may be more beneficial.
Standard diabetes advice
It’s common for doctors to advice type 2 diabetes to eat smaller, more frequent meals at regular intervals; up to six times per day.
But this approach has been known to cause problems, especially for those with severe forms of diabetes who need to inject insulin. This high-dosage insulin injection can create glucose imbalances and lead to weight gain. For people who aren’t underweight, gaining weight can lead to a greater risk of cardiovascular problems.
The new advice for diabetes
A research team from Tel Aviv University wanted to see if eating a diet that matches your natural body clock could help reduce the amount of insulin diabetics need.
They split volunteers (all of whom had type 2 diabetes) into two groups:
- Group 1 ate the standard six meals a day.
- Group 2 ate three meals a day: an early breakfast with bread, fruit and sweets; a sizeable lunch; and a small meal at dinner that contains no fruit, sweets or starchy foods.
They took a variety of measurements from both participants, including appetite, weight, blood sugar control and body clock gene expression at:
- baseline (before the study)
- 2 weeks after the study started
- 12 weeks after the trial
They found that group 1 neither lost weight or saw better blood sugar control, but group 2 experienced both benefits.
“Their need for diabetic medication, especially for insulin doses, dipped substantially,” explains Professor Daniela Jakubowicz. “Some were even able to stop using insulin altogether. In addition, the [three meal diet] improved the expression of biological clock genes. This suggests that the … diet is not only more effective in controlling diabetes. It may also prevent many other complications, such as cardiovascular disease, aging, and cancer, which are all regulated by the biological clock genes.”
Always talk to your doctor before changing your dietary habits.
