This will be quick. I saw a commercial last night for Glucerna, a food product made specifically for diabetics. Of course, I had to check out their website and see what it’s all about.
I first notice that the products are carb-heavy. Not surprised one bit. After all, they’re trying to sell these things to Americans, so including a hefty dose of CHO is a good idea. They include some research on the “Why Glucerna Works” page, which shows a comparison of Glucerna products to leading products of a similar class in regard to blood sugar response after the meal. Of course, there is no comparison to any whole food, like eggs for instance. I had a hard time finding much of their peer reviewed research for each product and gave up after about 20 minutes of searching. If anyone can locate it, I’d appreciate a link. I’m referring to the Supplements in Diabetes.
Touted on the website are the facts that the product also contains chromium picolinate – for blood sugar control, 26 essential vitamins and minerals – for “Complete, Balanced Nutrition.” They’re also gluten and lactose free!
What they don’t tout is that the products also contain nutritious ingredients such as: fructose, soy protein isolate, corn maltodextrin, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, fractionated palm kernel oil, high fructose corn syrup.
Would we really be doing diabetics any favors by convincing them they can eat processed foods that will help control their blood sugar, rather than telling them to buck-up and make some real changes? Look, you have diabetes. It’s your body’s way of telling you it can’t handle whatever you’ve been throwing at it, so start eating real, healthy, low-carb foods or suffer the consequences.
While hunting for Glucerna research, I did find this article by the same lead author of the breakfast cereal vs Glucerna study, Chow:
http://www.diabetesresearchclinicalpractice.com/article/S0168-8227%2806%2900397-4/abstract
Interestingly, the viscous fiber-containing (guar gum) nutrition bar basically cut down on hunger by making people feel like shit. Do you think they’ll put increased stomach distention and flatulence on the label?