Newsletter #134: Lifestyle Interventions to Prevent Diabetes 🏃♀️
Welcome to the Thanksgiving edition of the humanOS newsletter! Hopefully, all of our friends here in the US enjoyed a happy and safe holiday this week.
Given the holiday and its association with indulgent eating, it seems all too appropriate that we came across a plethora of research on the link between diet and type 2 diabetes. Fortunately, there is plenty that people can do to help avert the disease.
We learned that people at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes (prediabetes) who modestly increase their physical activity and lose just a few pounds can nearly halve their risk of developing the condition and that a high-protein low calorie diet can boost insulin sensitivity by up to 90%. Finally, a higher intake of ultra-processed food is linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes (but that’s nothing new).
Scroll down to learn more 👇
This Week’s Research Highlights
🌭 Higher intake of ultra-processed foods is associated with a higher prevalence of obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.
Researchers analyzed cross-sectional data from 13608 subjects enrolled in the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey–Nutrition. Participants provided data on food consumption, body mass index, and self-reported diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. All foods and drinks consumed were classified according to the extent and purpose of industrial processing using the NOVA classification. Ultra-processed food consumption was estimated as the proportion of total daily energy intake. Compared to the lowest tertile, adults in the highest tertile of ultra-processed food consumption had 31% higher odds of obesity, 37% higher odds of diabetes, and 60% higher odds of hypertension, after adjusting for a range of socio-demographic and lifestyle factors. This finding is in agreement with a similar study in French adults, which found that every 10% increase in ultra-processed food intake translated to a 15% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The reasons why this is the case are somewhat complex. It may be attributed, most obviously, to the nutritional components of ultra-processed foods (lots of fat, sugar, salt - that’s why they’re so damn tasty), but also packaging and added chemical compounds that are thought to disrupt the endocrine system and gut microbiome.
📉 People with prediabetes who make very small changes to their activity and body weight can cut their risk of type 2 diabetes nearly in half.
Prediabetes is a condition characterized by higher-than-normal fasting blood sugar or hemoglobin A1C (or impaired glucose tolerance), but not high enough to be diagnostic for diabetes. It is thought that about one in three Americans have prediabetes, and as the name suggests, it indicates a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future. Can lifestyle interventions targeted at these vulnerable individuals help prevent them from transitioning to full-blown diabetes? To answer this question, researchers identified 1028 people whose blood work placed them in a high-risk glycemic category and randomized them to either a control arm receiving usual care or into a simple group-based lifestyle intervention arm. This intervention focused on very small, easily achievable lifestyle changes, which led to modest weight loss (2-3 kilograms, or around 4-7 pounds) and increased physical activity, and importantly was sustained for at least two years. Over the course of the study, participants in the intervention arms reduced their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 40-47%. Even better, the intervention cost was very low, at just $153 per participant, since the program was delivered in groups and was not as intensive as other similar trials.
💪🏽 A high-protein low calorie diet can rapidly and dramatically boost insulin sensitivity in obese subjects with insulin resistance.
Eighty subjects with obesity (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) and insulin resistance were randomized to four groups for a one-month period: a normal protein diet (< 20%) with primarily animal protein or vegetable protein, or a high-protein diet (25–30%) with primarily animal protein or vegetable protein. At the end of the study period, body weight, BMI, and waist circumference decreased in all groups (as you would expect - they were all eating less). But insulin sensitivity improved more in the high-protein groups. After just one month, the high-protein hypocaloric diets resulted in a 60-90% improvement in insulin sensitivity, and this was regardless of weight loss and regardless of the source of protein (either animal or vegetable). This is a key finding since some past research has suggested that high-protein diets tend to decrease insulin sensitivity and specifically those higher in animal protein, but the opposite was seen here. Additionally, skeletal muscle was increased in both of the high-protein groups and fat mass was decreased, and levels of triglycerides and c-reactive protein were diminished. Also worth bearing in mind is that these high animal protein diets contained less than 7% saturated fat, so they were pretty different from diets high in animal protein that you typically see in real life.
Question of the Week
In what year did the first-ever Thanksgiving take place?
Videos We Loved This Week
- Kevin Hall: Ultra-Processed Foods. Via ILSI Global.
- James Hill: National Weight Control Registry - Common behaviors in weight maintenance. Via Obesity Action Coalition.
- Richard Buchholz: “Hot” for turkey - how female turkeys judge males and select a suitable mate. Via Science Friday.
Products We Are Enjoying
GO CONDITION FOCUS BAR- 3 BAR TRIAL PACK (3 FLAVORS)
Remember our friends at Go Condition? They are out with a new bar (in different flavors) and have created a Black Friday deal for you to try at a discount.
Go Condition Focus Bars are formulated to give you a lift without weighing you down. At only 25g and 90-110 calories, they come in three bold flavors and feature three targeted ingredients: cocoa flavanols, caffeine, and l-Theanine, which combine to deliver a punch of energy with an overriding sense of well-being, calm and mental clarity, and focus. They light you up and tune you in without causing jitters or brain fog that can come from run-of-the-mill drinks and snacks. Focus Bars are a delicious functional food that builds strength and endurance, energy, and focuses through the combination of three active ingredients: caffeine, l-theanine, and flavonols.
No affiliate relationship here. Just happy to share products we like from people we like.
humanOS Catalog Feature of the Week
The FLASH Diet
This week, we’d like to highlight one of the courses from the Ideal Weight Program, developed by our good friend Stephan Guyenet, a researcher who specializes in the neuroscience of eating behavior and obesity. The Ideal Weight Program is an evidence-based system for sustainable weight management which teaches you the science of body weight regulation and eating behavior and translates it into simple, practical strategies for weight management. This program offers three different diets based on your weight management goal. For those who need to lose body fat relatively rapidly (but safely), the FLASH Diet is the plan for you.
FLASH stands for Fat Loss And Sustainable Health, and is modeled after protein-sparing modified fast diets that were developed by researchers in the 1970s and remain the most effective fat loss plan ever studied. In this course, Stephan explains the background behind FLASH diet, where it fits in the sequence of the Ideal Weight Program, what to eat and how to prepare food to adhere to this plan, and more.