Probiotics May Help Stabilise Blood Sugar Levels, Research Shows

Rebecca Lewis December 09, 2016

You know that increasing your fibre intake may actually help stabilise your blood sugar levels, which in turn lower your risk of diabetes. But did you know that consuming foods that are rich in probiotics also have the same effect? That’s according to the study carried out by researchers in Canada.

For the study, the researchers tracked 80 people who followed a DASH diet, which is recommended for those who suffer from high blood pressure. About 15 per cent of the participants had pre-diabetes. Some of them also consumed probiotics along with DASH diet. They did so by replacing certain components of the DASH diet with probiotic-rich components. For example, instead of just consuming any type of low-fat dairy product, as recommended by the DASH diet, a person could eat a low-fat probiotic yogurt, he said.

The findings revealed that probiotic consumption led to a decrease in several measures of blood sugar levels over a three-month period. Before the diets began, there were no differences in the measurements between the two groups. After three months, both groups had similarly lower blood pressure measurements, Pandey said. In other words, adding probiotics did not appear to be associated with a change in blood pressure, specifically.

Also, DASH diet + probiotics also had an effect with the participants’ fasting blood sugar levels, according to the study. The DASH-plus-probiotics group lowered their fasting blood sugar levels by 10.7 percent, on average, compared with an average reduction of 3.3 percent in the group that followed only the DASH diet.

While more research is needed, the findings suggest that adding probiotics to the DASH diet could be used in the future to help protect against diabetes, said Arjun Pandey, a researcher at the Cambridge Cardiac Care Centre in Ontario and the author of the study.

While the study didn’t establish a cause-and-effect link, the researchers believe that one possible explanation for how probiotics could lower blood sugar levels is through a compound called butyrate, which may play a role in insulin sensitivity. When insulin sensitivity is higher, the body does a better job of absorbing sugar from the blood, therefore lowering blood sugar levels.

Source of this article:

Want To Reduce Your Blood Sugar Levels? Try Probiotics

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