Transcription
Hey, welcome to the centerfuge where I take health podcasts and other shows and essentially fact check them by bringing forward the studies behind the claims. Are they accurate or are they not?
In this episode, we'll be getting into breakfast specifically. So, the topics are sugar and glucose spikes. Is it so simple? Could how you eat your food impact the glucose spikes that you experience? And I know this may seem blasphemous, but are glucose spikes even a concern in the first place?
Now, I'm mentioning glucose spikes for good reason. Because in today's episode, continuing the J Shetty podcast guest breakdown. We're going over what Jesse Ashuspi, hopefully that's somewhat correct, has to say, but she's better known as the glucose goddess. Now, bow you peasant. No, no, I I wasn't serious. You didn't actually need to bow. The goddess is a French biochemist and New York Times bestseller according to her website. As usual, I'll supply summaries at the end, but let's get into it.
>> The glucose spikes that we experience after breakfast is going to control the rest of our day. So, if you eat in the morning something that is pure glucose, like most of us do, right? I grew up on orange juice and Nutella crepes, so I know >> sounds amazing. [laughter] It was amazing. But then at 10:30, I was exhausted because I was crashing. My glucose levels were crashing and I was super super hungry because after a big spike, you experience a big crash. And that crash activates the craving center in your brain and literally tells you, Jay, go find some chocolate, you know, and you cannot resist >> what that voice sounds like. [laughter] >> And you can't resist that urge. So, your breakfast, if you're having a big glucose spike at breakfast, you're setting yourself up for a day of cravings, fatigue, inflammation, and you're going to feel quite awful.
>> Okay, a lot packed in there. First, if you eat a sweet breakfast, you'll experience a glucose spike, which will lead to a crash later on, controlling the rest of your day. Now, believe it or not, this is complex to break down because there's a lot of variables when considering breakfast as a whole, but I'll do my best here. Madmoiselle Goddess is absolutely right that sugar generally increases our postmeal blood glucose levels termed a glucose spike. This is evidenced in studies like this one where participants were given the same breakfast mostly carbohydrates and then paired that breakfast with one of several drinks. So two with a load of glucose and fructose like regular table sugar and others with other forms of sugar. So milk associated sugar like lactose. Now we don't need to worry about those details. Just look at the graph of their blood glucose levels after eating and drinking these different breakfasts. They all led to a glucose spike around that 45minute mark with sugarsw sweetened coffee leading to the greatest spike. Speaking to Jesse's point, however, I'll also have you note that they tested orange juice at exactly the same amount of sugar and they did not experience a greater glucose spike compared to even water. So, this speaks to other variables also playing a role outside of just sugar. Plus also notice that the return of the blood glucose to normal levels happened at a similar speed across the conditions. So it seems that carbohydrateheavy and even sugarheavy breakfasts don't lead to a crash. But there's two more points to be said in defense of Jesse's point. One, this study compared against other carbohydrates. So maybe we'd detect an effect when comparing against other foods. We'll be getting into more depth on that point soon. Two, there is wellestablished evidence across decades of work that different foods have different effects on our blood sugar. This is called the glycemic index. So that means that certain foods are generally going to lead to faster entrance of glucose molecules from sugar into the bloodstream leading to a glucose spike. That means that if you eat a food in isolation, you will absolutely experience a glucose spike greater than another food. and some of those foods like rice, breads, uh breakfast cereals, and simpler carbohydrates. The issue here, as we saw in the first study, is that we don't eat foods in isolation typically for breakfast. And the matrix of the food that hits your stomach makes a huge impact on if we get a glucose spike or not. So the takeaway at this point is yes, many foods in isolation cause glucose spikes, but the matrix of the food can reduce or increase that glucose spike. And simply looking at the sugar content is really insufficient to predict a glucose spike. We'll get more into that soon. We'll listen some more.
Now, >> an important switch to make is to switch from a sweet breakfast to a savory breakfast built around protein. Right? Whatever kind of protein you like. Maybe it's dairy, maybe it's tofu, maybe it's protein powder, maybe it's leftover fish from last night, maybe it's eggs, whatever kind of protein you want, that's going to keep your glucose levels nice and steady.
>> So, is the secret to reducing glucose spikes protein? Generally, yes. We see that across many studies like this one, where participants had their blood glucose measured similarly to what we previously went over. And you can see that two of the lines are dramatically blunted compared to the others. These two conditions specifically contained more protein. But that also came at the expense of fats and importantly carbohydrates. So was it the protein or the reduction in the blood glucose stimulating nutrient, the carbohydrates? Unfortunately, we can't say based off these data, but there's a consistent theme across other studies that including protein reduces glucose spikes. And when looking at other studies that maintain the same amount of carbohydrates and only raise protein in a step-wise fashion, there's a reduction in blood glucose. More whey protein, less glucose in the blood within the measurement period. Okay, so excellent. Jesse is spot on. Okay, so what we know so far is that different sugar sources cause different blood glucose spikes. They aren't all equal, but if we want to guarantee a reduced blood glucose spike, then add protein to the meal. Next, Jesse is going to go over a hack on how to eat your breakfast and the impact that it has on well glucose spikes. Now, in addition, I'd like to go over if we should even be worried about these glucose spikes because I think that context is really important. Add some healthy fats in there and you can have some starch like a slice of bread for taste. But importantly, a savory breakfast contains nothing sweet except if you want some for taste, some whole fruit, right? And you know all those sweet breakfast foods that you love, you don't have to say goodbye to them completely. The best time to have them is for dessert after lunch or after dinner. Because if you eat something that contains a lot of glucose, something starchy or sweet after a meal, >> the glucose molecules are not going to arrive as quickly into your bloodstream because there's already going to be food in your stomach.
>> The worst time to eat starches and sugars is breakfast >> because your body is super empty. So, anything you eat goes to your bloodstream in a second, right? But it's actually the meal of the day where most of us >> eat just starches and sugars. Yeah. >> Think about the typical breakfast. Orange juice, oats with honey on them, breakfast cereal, you know, fruit smoothies, >> oatmeal with raisins. >> Exactly. And then you wonder why most of us feel so terrible throughout the day. Why it's 400 p.m. and we're exhausted and we need coffee or Red Bull. We have cravings all throughout the day and even at night. Your breakfast controls how you feel for the whole day.
>> So, the goddess herself is talking about switching to a savory breakfast. generally things that are lower carbohydrate like eggs, avocado, and so on. In fact, just such a study exists comparing a carbohydrate- richch breakfast containing a bagel to eggs. Now, both breakfasts were calorically the same, and we can see that the carbohydrate dominant breakfast led to greater glucose spikes. Now, it doesn't look like much, but that's because we're looking at mill per liter instead of milligram per deciliter. And in fact, hunger also rebounded more quickly, too. To Jesse's point about cravings, as the higher the lines go, the greater the people's hunger. To be fair, the difference wasn't huge, but it's still present, and we don't know how much that it might have widened if the experiment had lasted longer. On top of that, she briefly mentions that food order may matter. For example, consuming anything sweet after savory as opposed to before. There is data to back that up, too, like this study that she enjoys referencing in other content. In fact, I did a deep dive on this very concept in another video and there are some limitations though the overall idea is correct. Now, the takeaway these last few points mentioned is that yes, focusing on savory breakfast as well as putting any sweet foods that you consume last in the order of eating reduces your blood glucose spike. The glucose goddess is goddessing. Still, something doesn't sit well with me about all this. And it's not indigestion or a glucose spike. It's the question of should we even be worried about any of this. I'm going to touch on that next as I've done deep dives on that very question before, including multiple studies. Before I touch on it again for you here, I have a more extensive version of this video that you're watching, which includes more on how to time protein, how to think about protein in your meals, and the strange effects that mixed meals have on your blood sugar, your blood glucose. Now, if you're interested, check out my Physionic Insiders platform. It grants you access to what I just went over in video and written form, but also comes with a ton of other searchable material and all these perks right over here. Plus, you keep this kind of work alive. So, consider joining the insiders. The link to check it all out is in the description box.
Okay, glucose spikes. Are they even a problem? Well, the glucose goddess brand is based largely, if not entirely, on this one problem. But honestly, the evidence in the literature is a lot less certain. When I looked over the studies, it seemed to me that we are misinterpreting or misrepresenting the studies. While on social media, we focus on the top of the spike, the research focuses on the point 2 hours after the meal consumption. Meaning that if a person's blood glucose is below 140 milligs per deciliter, so that's 7.8 mill per liter, that's a normal reading. So of course if we use the same numbers but we move them up to the 45minute mark almost everyone's blood glucose will be much greater. Is that a reason for panic? Highly likely not simply because that's not how the measurements are supposed to be interpreted. So the blood glucose spikes can and often do extend beyond the 140 mg per deciliters but the true measure is 2 hours later not the peak of the spike itself. In addition I pointed this out in a graph in my previous analysis which indicates that the amount of time of day that we spend in different ranges of blood glucose if we're healthy. Granted, it's a small sample of people, but even so, look at the amount of time above 140. What is that? Like a few percent. That translates to less than an hour total. Is that really meaningful if your blood glucose is well below that the overwhelming majority of the day? I have my strong doubts, but I'd certainly be open to other research indicating otherwise. Still, many people have glucose spikes that last longer than 2 hour the 2-hour threshold. And for those people, it's possible that glucose spikes are a problem. I would still focus on the underlying issues like overall insulin resistance rather than glucose spikes themselves. But I'd be more concerned if a if people are pre-diabetic or diabetic.
Okay, as usual, that was a lot. So, how do we package this up nicely? Well, I think that we're overindexing on the harm of sweet foods without contextualizing things correctly. One, we know that carbohydrate foods tend to raise blood glucose or blood sugar more. However, even within carbohydrateheavy foods, there's a lot of difference even within equal sugar consumption. Two, you can reduce your blood glucose spikes by simply mixing your carbohydrates and sweet foods with protein. Three, you can also reduce your blood glucose spikes by changing the order of your food, consuming your carbohydrate or sweet foods after your savory. And four, I'm not convinced that glucose spikes are a concern for people who are generally healthy. They may be more of an issue for diabetic and pre-diabetic individuals, but if you have a glucose monitor and your blood glucose returns to less than 140 milligrams per deciliter, remember that's about like a 7.8 8 mill moles per liter within 2 hours of eating your food, you're probably fine. If it stays above that for much longer, then it may be worth using uh some of the tricks that we outlined here. But the best bang for your buck would be to focus on improving your overall insulin sensitivity. Finally, I'll also add that people can feel off due to glucose spikes, which comes down to personal preference. In such a case, you can still use the points that were brought up. At any rate, hopefully you feel a bit more certain on the topic. If you want more health separation of what's scientifically accurate and what's not, then check out the next episode of the centerfuge right here. Otherwise, I do deeper analysis on Jesse's points on meal timing right here. And I'll add links to my other work on the topic in the description. I hope this helped. Catch you in the next one. See you.