Pizza and Diabetes

from Nutrition news, The Observer, Sunday June 12, 2005

'Diabetics are often recommended to eat a diet rich in starchy carbohydrates such as bread, potatoes, rice, pasta and breakfast cereals. However, the fact is that many of these foods liberate their sugar rapidly into the bloodstream, and are therefore far from ideal for diabetics. In a recent study published in the journal Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics, individuals with type 1 diabetes (the form of diabetes that generally develops early in life and necessitates the use of insulin) were fed with pizza and then administered one of three insulin treatments of different duration of action. The most effective blood-sugar control was found when individuals were given the longest-acting insulin therapy (designed to last eight hours).'

'This study suggests that pizza can exert its blood-sugar disrupting effects for a very long time indeed, and provides yet more evidence for the notion that starch-based foods can cause considerable blood-sugar instability. Better foods for diabetics include those that are less disruptive to blood-sugar levels such as meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, green vegetables, beans and lentils.'