Tag: Diabetes

Weekly Update & Health Statistics: 10/17/21

I’m always looking for collaborators for future experiments. If you’re interested in collaborating on scientifically rigorous self-experiments with low-carb foods, supplements, or other health interventions, please let me know in the comments or via the contact form on the right.

I posted the first phase of the vinegar study this week. Thanks  /u/genetastic and /u/kabong for all the work you put in figuring out the protocol, running the experiments, and analyzing the data! We successfully replicated the literature, seeing a statistically significant ~20% reduction in peak blood glucose and larger slowing of BG rise. The protocol I used, though, was extremely unpleasant (soak the bread in 30g ACV), so the next step will be to see if a more practical protocol gives similar results.

Experiments this week focused on flour replacements. So far I’ve tested almond, lupin, carbquick, carbalose, okara, and hemp. I’ll post a quick preview of the data next week after I’ve worked it up.

Next week will focus on more vinegar experiments, continuing the flour tests, and possibly starting alternate dietary fibers.

Active & Planned Experiments

  • Blood Glucose Impact of Low-Carb Foods & Ingredients
    • Goal: Determine blood glucose impact of low-carb foods and ingredients
    • Approach: Protocol
    • Status:
      • This week: 4 commenter requests (Two Good yogurt, Julian Bakery bread, and “control” tortillas & ice cream (non-low carb, for comparison)) and 3 chocolates.
      • Reported:
      • Up next:
        • Flour replacements
        • Vegetables
        • Meats
        • Low-carb fruits
        • Miscellaneous low-carb prepared foods
        • Dietary fibers
  • Blood Glucose Impact of Supplements
    • Goal: Determine blood glucose impact and mechanism of promising supplements
  • Methods of Sleeping Longer

Let me know in the comments if there’s any other experiments you’d like to see.


– QD

Observations & Data

Continue reading “Weekly Update & Health Statistics: 10/17/21” →

Does Vinegar Really Lower Blood Glucose? – 20% Lower Blood Glucose in an N=3, Pre-Registered, Community Experiment

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Thanks to the team for all the work they put in figuring out the protocol, running the experiments, and analyzing the data: /u/genetastic and /u/kabong!

Summary

A reader, /u/genetastic, reached out about collaborating on experiments to determine the effect of vinegar on blood glucose after meal consumption.

Like most of you, I had heard all the nigh-magical, pseudoscience claims about using apple cider vinegar to treat diabetes. However, when you dig into the literature, there’s a sizable number of peer-reviewed studies, including several decent meta-analyses, showing that consumption of vinegar with a meal can reduce the blood glucose impact in both diabetic and non-diabetic subjects (see background below for details). There’s also a lot of open questions, including:

  • Is the effect large enough to matter for practical meals?
  • What types of meals does vinegar affect?
  • What is the best protocol to get a large effect without unpleasant side effects?
  • What’s the underlying mechanism?
  • Is the effect specific to vinegar or do other acids work?

/u/genetastic, a third collaborator /u/kabong, and I decided to answer these questions with community self-experiment.

For the first phase of this experiment, we wanted to check that we could observe the reported impact of vinegar on blood sugar and that the effect size was large enough to be worth further study.

Towards this end, all three experimenters tested consuming regular white bread with and without apple cider vinegar (the most commonly tested meal and vinegar source in the literature).

Here’s a summary of the results & next steps (full details below):

  • We observed a similar effect of vinegar on blood glucose as that reported in the literature.
  • The effect was both statistically significant and meaningful in magnitude, justifying further study of the scope, mechanism, and optimal protocol.
    • Peak change in blood glucose & iAuC were reduced by 20% and time to peak blood glucose & initial rise were slowed by 15-20 min. (30-50%).
    • P-values were all <0.05, with the exception of the drop in iAuC, which was 0.12
  • Next, we will be looking at the following:
    • Diluting vinegar to make it more palatable
    • Alternate macronutrients (simple sugars, proteins) to determine scope of the effect
    • Alternate acid sources to test the amylase-inhibition hypothesis

All-in-all, a good start to the study. The effect seems to be real and likely caused by a slowing of the initial rise/rate of metabolism.

We’re also see a lot of value to running the experiment as a team rather than my more typical N=1 study. With most of my experiments, there’s always a concern that the results are specific to my body chemistry and won’t generalize to others. Having data from multiple people significantly reduces that risk.

That said, having data from multiple participants significantly complicates the analysis. Luckily, /u/genetastic is much better at statistics than I am and was able to handle it.

It would significantly improve the study to have a larger number of participants. If you’re interested in collaborating on this or other scientifically rigorous self-experiments with low-carb foods, supplements, or other health interventions, please let me know in the comments or via the contact form on the right.


– QD

Details

Continue reading “Does Vinegar Really Lower Blood Glucose? – 20% Lower Blood Glucose in an N=3, Pre-Registered, Community Experiment” →

Weekly Update & Health Statistics: 10/10/21

I’m always looking for collaborators for future experiments. If you’re interested in collaborating on scientifically rigorous self-experiments with low-carb foods, supplements, or other health interventions, please let me know in the comments or via the contact form on the right.

I posted the results for low-carb chocolates this week. Found quite a few good ones, most notably the high cocoa stone ground chocolate from Taza and allulose-sweetened dark chocolate from Trendz. On the scientific side, I got even more evidence that there’s a large variation in the impact of different fibers, even ones with the same name listed on the nutrition label. I’m going to see whether I can source a decent variety to test.

Experiments this week focused on the last chocolates and samples of a low-carb chip under development by a food start-up (details and review to be provided when I’m allowed to post). Next week will focus on collecting more data for the vinegar study and starting to look at flour replacements and high-fiber fruits and vegetables.

Active & Planned Experiments

  • Blood Glucose Impact of Low-Carb Foods & Ingredients
    • Goal: Determine blood glucose impact of low-carb foods and ingredients
    • Approach: Protocol
    • Status:
      • This week: 4 commenter requests (Two Good yogurt, Julian Bakery bread, and “control” tortillas & ice cream (non-low carb, for comparison)) and 3 chocolates.
      • Reported:
      • Up next:
        • Flour replacements
        • Vegetables
        • Meats
        • Low-carb fruits
        • Miscellaneous low-carb prepared foods
        • Dietary fibers
  • Blood Glucose Impact of Supplements
    • Goal: Determine blood glucose impact and mechanism of promising supplements
  • Methods of Sleeping Longer

Let me know in the comments if there’s any other experiments you’d like to see.


– QD

Observations & Data

Continue reading “Weekly Update & Health Statistics: 10/10/21” →

Low-Carb Chocolate: Blood Glucose Testing of 13 Varieties with Promising Results

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This post is an update on my experiments measuring the effect of low-carb foods and dietary supplements on blood sugar.

This week, I have the results from low-carb chocolates. Next week I’ll starting testing and posting flour replacements and other ingredients.

Testing Queue:

  • Prepared foods:
    • Snack bars: in queue
    • Chocolate: This post
  • Ingredients:
    • Flour replacements: in queue
    • Seeds & nuts: in queue
    • Vegetables: in queue
  • Supplements:

Chocolate

Summary

Since I’ve started posting these food-effect studies, one of the most requested products has been low-carb chocolate. As with other low-carb products, a ton of new low-carb chocolates have become available. Initially, most used a simple substitution of a non-nutritive sweetener, like erythritol, for sugar. However, I’ve noticed in the last few years, a number of high cocoa/low sugar chocolates that use regular sugar, just in very low quantities (90-100% cocoa).

In both cases, the net carb count can be very low, though this largely relies on subtracting the high fiber content of the cocoa. Since I’ve had very mixed results with the blood glucose impact of dietary fiber (see here & here), I tested them myself.

Towards that end, I tested 13 chocolates from 4 different categories (grouped by sweetener). Here’s my overall conclusions:

  • Lowest BG impact: Lily’s Almond Dark & The Good Chocolate Signature Dark
    • ~65% of the impact of 100% cocoa bars
  • Best combination of taste & impact: Taza Wicked Dark & Trendz Bar
  • Chocolate with added fiber shows much higher blood glucose impact
    • There’s a significant variation between brands
    • This could be due to different fiber type or quantity
  • Watch out for the ChocZero chocolate, which gave ~2x the BG impact of the next highest chocolate.

Evidence continues to pile up that there’s a large variation in the impact of different fibers, even ones with the same name listed on the nutrition label. I’m going to see whether I can source a decent variety to test.

If anyone knows where to get the fibers and resistant starches that are used in low-carb prepared foods (especially from the actual manufacturers), please let me know in the comments or by PM.

As always, please let me know if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or anything else you’d like to see me test.


– QD

Details

Continue reading “Low-Carb Chocolate: Blood Glucose Testing of 13 Varieties with Promising Results” →

Weekly Update & Health Statistics: 10/3/21

I’m always looking for collaborators for future experiments. If you’re interested in collaborating on scientifically rigorous self-experiments with low-carb foods, supplements, or other health interventions, please let me know in the comments or via the contact form on the right.

I got my COVID booster last weekend and noticed an interesting spike in heart rate while weathering the side effects.

Experiments this week focused on finishing up the low-carb chocolate tests and starting the next stage of the vinegar study (determining how dose, dilution, timing, and macros influence the effect). For the chocolates, I’ve only got a few samples left, so I should be able to finish out the study this week. For vinegar, thanks to /u/genetastic, we’ve got the analysis of the initial tests done and I just need to write it up. Might get it out during the week, but definitely by next weekend. With the better analysis by /u/genetastic, we’re seeing a statistically significant effect, so should be interesting. More collaborators would improve the study considerably, so if you’re interested, let me know.

Active & Planned Experiments

  • Blood Glucose Impact of Low-Carb Foods
    • Goal: Determine blood glucose impact of low-carb foods and ingredients
  • Blood Glucose Impact of Supplements
    • Goal: Determine blood glucose impact and mechanism of promising supplements
  • Methods of Sleeping Longer

Let me know in the comments if there’s any other experiments you’d like to see.


– QD

Observations & Data

Continue reading “Weekly Update & Health Statistics: 10/3/21” →