The Relation between Carbohydrates and Diabetes

The biggest misconception most people have is the belief that all the carbohydrates are equal. This thinking is certainly one of the reasons why even the people who count their calorie intake carefully end up gaining a lot of weight and getting diabetes. The most common advice given to a diabetes patient is to stay away from carbohydrate rich foods and eat 5 or 6 small meals everyday. Following this instruction can be harmful to any human being and can cause even more problems for a diabetic.

Unlike us humans, the human body does not have a mechanism to count calories. Hence, there is a difference between the digestion of 200 calories of brown rice and 200 calories of white rice. It is the fiber content of these foods that makes this difference. When we consume foods which have a good amount of fiber, the stomach does not break the food down to glucose immediately which helps in preventing the pancreas being overloaded with the digestion process. In case of foods with no fiber, there is a lot of pressure on the pancreas, which if continued for a long period of time, leads to malfunctioning of the pancreas (hypoglycemia) or causes the pancreas to stop functioning altogether, resulting in diabetes.

Another problem is that problem of eating many small meals in one day. This activity causes a lot of strain on the stomach and also the pancreas. Hence, it is advised that instead of taking 5-6 small meals in a day, one should eat 2-3 meals and ensure that the meal is rich in fiber. The intake of refined foods like wheat and sugar should be avoided as much as possible.

Hence, it can be concluded that not all carbohydrates are bad. One only has to make sure that he is consuming good carbohydrates. Refined foods make the problem of diabetes even worse, thus diabetic patients must consume fiber rich foods like brown rice, whole wheat flour, fruits, nuts and vegetables which will keep the blood glucose levels in check.

This is a guest post by Jessy Troy, who blogs on diabetic diets.