You are not alone if you have been diagnosed with pre diabetes or diabetes. The amount of people being diagnosed with diabetes in Australia is rapidly increasing. It is the fasted growing chronic disease being diagnosed in Australia. Every day two hundred and eighty new cases of diabetes are diagnosed. In total there are around one point eight million Australians who have diabetes.
There are two types of diabetes type one and type two. Type one diabetes is out of a person’s control and is an autoimmune response which destroys the cells which create insulin called beta cells. Insulin triggers the blood sugar to be taken into your cells and without this hormone your blood sugar can continue to rise to unsafe levels. This is why injections of insulin are required.
Type two diabetes is the most common type of diabetes and is largely due to unhealthy lifestyle factors. Type two diabetes is diagnosed when your insulin sensitivity reduces and or the amount of insulin which can be secreted by your beta cells reduce.
Diet is one factor which can influence your risk of diabetes. Research suggests that seafood can play a positive role in reducing your risk of diabetes due to many components included in the seafood matrix. Of these many factors, new research suggests that taurine, found in high levels in sardines, may help to reduce the chances of progressing from pre-diabetes to diabetes.
Taurine is an amino acid or building block to make a protein in your body. There are 8 essential amino acids that you need to get from food as your body cannot make them. You need to include foods with these amino acids to allow your body to make a complete protein. Under specific circumstance such as during pregnancy, the amino acid taurine becomes conditionally essential.
Taurine may have numerous effects which slow or reverse the progression to type two diabetes. This includes improving blood sugar levels, reducing inflammation, and reducing oxidation in your body.
The researchers investigated the potential positive effects of taurine on the progression of prediabetes to diabetes in one hundred and fifty-two people who had prediabetes. This meant they had a fasting blood glucose level of between one hundred and one hundred and twenty-four milligrams per deciliter. Participants were sixty-five years of age or older.
The participants were separated into two groups. One received two hundred grams a week of sardines and the other control group did not receive anything. After one year the researchers found that the participants who were at greatest risk of developing type two diabetes was lower in the group which ate two hundred grams of sardines a week compared to the control group. The group which ate the sardines had significantly higher levels of the amino acid taurine in their blood. Also, levels of omega-3 fat, vitamin D, and fluorine.
An exciting finding was the insulin resistance in the group which consumed the sardines was lower. Insulin resistance is the amount of insulin that needs to be released by your pancreas to take the glucose from your blood to the cells of your body. It is the major component which determines classification from pre-diabetes to diabetes.
In addition to this positive effect the group which ate the sardines had an increase in ‘good’ HDL- cholesterol and a decrease in triglycerides. Also, an increase in adiponectin, decrease in blood pressure. The sardine group also had an increase in three different types of omega-three polyunsaturated fat and a decrease in five different types of omega-six fat. Omega-six fat is often eaten in excess in the western diet and the imbalance in the ratio of omega-three to omega-six fat is linked to increase inflammation.
The take home message from this research is including adequate seafood each week may reduce your risk of developing type two diabetes. It is recommended to include two to three serves of seafood each week. A serve of seafood is one hundred grams of cooked seafood. Including a variety of seafood is recommended and this includes sardines.
Take home message: Making seafood a regular part of your weekly diet has many health benefits. If you are yet to explore sardines as a seafood choice, it may hold health benefits which may reduce your risk of developing type two diabetes.
References:
- Díaz-Rizzolo DA, Serra A, Colungo C, Sala-Vila A, Sisó-Almirall A, Gomis R. Type 2 diabetes preventive effects with a 12-months sardine-enriched diet in elderly population with prediabetes: An interventional, randomized and controlled trial. Clin Nutr. 2021 May;40(5):2587-2598. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2021.03.014. Epub 2021 Mar 18. PMID: 33932804.
- Diabetes in Australia. Diabetes Australia. https://www.diabetesaustralia.com.au/about-diabetes/diabetes-in-australia/
- Sardines reduced the risk of type 2 diabetes in older people with prediabetes. Examine https://examine.com/summaries/study/98kkV0/
