Obesity: Vegan diet keeps sugar in check
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.Overweight people were particularly likely to develop diabetes. Avoiding sweets and lemonades is definitely a good idea. But it's not just sugar that promotes diabetes: Meat and other animal products also seem to have an unfavorable effect on blood sugar levels.
To investigate this, US researchers put 38 overweight and obese test subjects on a vegan diet for 16 weeks. The participants did not have to count calories, but they did not have to do without meat, dairy products and eggs. Vegetables, fruits, and whole grains made up the bulk of their meals. The fat content was only ten percent.
Reduced blood sugar
The vegan diet was successful: the blood sugar level of the purely plant-based participants was significantly lower than before, both on an empty stomach and after a meal. In particular, the function of her beta cells had improved. These cells reside in the pancreas and produce insulin. In order to release the necessary amount at any time, the beta cells continuously register the amount of glucose in the blood.
After the vegan diet, this interaction worked much better than before: After a meal, the beta cells reacted more sensitively to the glucose in the blood and produced more insulin. This positive effect was not found in a control group of 37 overweight people who were allowed to continue to eat as usual.
Smaller BMI, less belly fat
The subjects in both groups had lost weight. But only in the vegan participants had the BMI significantly reduced. In contrast to the control group, in the vegan group it was mainly fat that melted. In contrast, the subjects hardly lost any muscle mass.
In particular, the so-called visceral fat in the abdomen was broken down. Unlike other fat deposits, it produces a particularly large number of unfavorable messenger substances, especially those that stimulate inflammation. Visceral fat is considered to be a separate risk factor for diabetes.
"The study provides important information for preventing diabetes," says study leader Hana Kahleova from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington. A purely plant-based, carbohydrate-based diet could be cheaper than one that mainly focuses on saving carbohydrates and a lot of protein. The latter, however, have been particularly popular for some time.
Diabetes is creeping up
90 percent of all type 2 diabetics are overweight. Even before the disease shows up, many have unnoticed for years an impaired glucose metabolism. Doctors refer to this stage as prediabetes.
If someone continuously eats a lot, the body also has to move a lot of glucose from the blood into the body's cells. This requires a lot of insulin, which acts as a sugar shaker. At some point, however, the cells react increasingly sluggishly to the hormone. Then the insulin level has to rise in order to be effective. The beta cells can do this for a long time by producing more and more insulin. In the end, however, they become visibly exhausted - only then does the blood sugar derail.
