Adding This Grain to Your Diet Can Help Prevent Diabetes



Regular consumption of quinoa can help avoid type 2 diabetes. This is the major finding of a study led by Diana Daz Rizzolo, a scientist at the August Pi I Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) and a professor at the Open University of Catalonia's Faculty of Health Sciences (UOC). The journal Nutrients recently published the study's findings.

Quinoa is a pseudocereal with a high nutritional content that comes from the Andes. It is incredibly rich in vitamins B, E, and C as well as minerals including calcium, iron, and magnesium. It is rich in complex carbs, fiber, and proteins, all of which are important amino acids that should be included in our diets.

It was thought that quinoa's nutritional attributes could help several metabolic disorders, such as type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular ailments. However, there was no evidence to back up these health benefit claims in any trials.                       
According to Daz Rizzolo, "We conducted a review to see what the scientific literature had to say about all the benefits attributed to quinoa and we found that there was no prior scientific evidence, only hypotheses, and that all the studies conducted in the past only focused on specific components or nutrients, without taking into account the food as a whole.

Recent studies on mice found that the vitamin polyphenols, which is abundant in quinoa, may aid to control blood sugar levels. This is significant because people with type 2 diabetes, a condition that is quite common, often experience blood sugar increases after eating foods heavy in carbohydrates because their bodies either don't generate enough insulin or can't recognize the insulin the pancreas secretes.

Given all the potential health benefits associated with it, the researcher and her colleagues sought to explore what would occur if someone's diet was changed to include quinoa and items produced from this pseudocereal rather than carbohydrate-rich foods that cause more rapid increases in blood glucose levels. Their goal was to ascertain whether this substitution could help those at high risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes by preventing the disease.

A metabolic condition known as type 2 diabetes is one of the main causes of early death worldwide. One in 10 persons get it each year. In fact, it was the cause of death for 1.5 million people globally in 2019 alone, and its prevalence is only rising, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Fortunately, type 2 diabetes is preceded by a condition termed "prediabetes," during which the illness can be avoided by taking the appropriate steps.

"People with prediabetes have a 70% chance of developing the condition. Since older persons have an even higher conversion rate, prediabetes and aging together greatly raise the chance of acquiring the disease. Because of this, Dr. Daz Rizzolo stated, "we decided to investigate whether quinoa may be used to delay the development of the disease in this group.

The researchers gathered prediabetic patients above the age of 65 for the study. Age is a risk factor in and of itself for developing the illness, which can begin silently ten years prior to diagnosis. The volunteers were observed by the researchers for a month; they were each given a continuous glucose monitor that assessed their blood sugar every minute of the day and asked to keep a food diary. The team was able to see how their blood sugar levels changed following each meal as a result.

By the end of the month, they had switched to quinoa and products manufactured from this pseudocereal in place of foods high in complex carbs like cereals, pulses, tubers, and pasta. In order to do this, they collaborated with the Alcia Foundation, which created novel dishes utilizing quinoa flour that were extremely similar to what the study's participants were eating, such as bread, brioches, pasta, crackers, and breadsticks. The volunteers' varying blood sugar levels throughout the day were then once more noted.                                                                      
The UOC researcher explained, "We analyzed the blood sugar trends and discovered that the subjects' blood sugar increase was smaller when they had eaten quinoa than with their typical diet." This is important since the development of type 2 diabetes is influenced by these post-meal blood sugar rises, she continued.

The quinoa-based diet helped manage blood lipid levels, which led the researchers to conclude that it may be helpful in lowering high cholesterol and other risk factors for cardiovascular disease. According to Daz Rizzolo, quinoa has a significant concentration of polyphenols, antioxidants, and unsaturated fats, all of which have clear cardiovascular advantages. High quantities of betaine, a substance that can control homocysteine levels and delay the beginning of coronary heart disease, are also present in this pseudocereal.

By OPEN UNIVERSITY OF CATALONIA (UOC) 

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