Learn how to listen to blood sugars for mealtime

One theory is that the will to eat is a decision associated with conditioned responses and with unconditioned body sensations that reflect changes in metabolic biomarkers. Here, researchers investigated whether this decision can be delayed until blood glucose is allowed to fall to low levels, when presumably feeding behavior is mostly unconditioned. Following such an eating pattern might avoid some of the metabolic risk factors that are associated with high blood sugars.

The main hypothesis of this study was that adult individuals can be trained to accurately estimate their glucose levels at meal times. This knowledge was achieved by training the subjects to associate feelings of hunger with low glucose concentrations. In contrast, control (untrained) subjects were unable to recognize their glycemic levels at meal times and expressed the will to eat at a wide range of blood sugar values.

The findings suggest (1) that eating when blood sugars are high may lead to higher calorie intake than in trained subjects, and (2) that the lack of correlation between food consumption and blood sugars may, at least in part, explain why part of the population cannot maintain a healthy weight.

The conclusion to this study was that people can learn to listen to their bodies when their blood sugars are low. The hope is that if people can learn to tell the difference between the need to eat and the need to put something in their mouth, they might be able to control their weight AND better control their blood sugars.
So what can you learn from this study? The most important thing is that research is showing that we CAN learn to listen to our bodies to control our food intake. A concept that is becoming more popular is called “Mindful Eating”. Another concept to investigate is ‘Intuitive Eating’.

To read the abstract of this study, go to;
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/3/1/42