A simple meal plan of eating vegetables at the beginning of a meal achieved better blood sugar control than an exchanged-based diet.

Researchers in Japan wanted to learn if patients could improve their diabetic control with the  simple dietary recommendation to eat  vegetables before carbohydrate at meals. To test the theory they divided  101 individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus into two groups. One group was advised to  eat vegetables before eating carbohydrate at meals, the other group was to follow an exchange based meal plan.  The researchers  followed the group for 24 months.

Both groups improved their diabetic control, but the group eating vegetables before meals lowered their HbA1c significantly  from 8.3% to 6.8%. The other group altered their HbA1c from 8.2% to 7.3%.

HbA1c is a lab test that shows the average amount of sugar in blood over 3 months. It shows people who have diabetes  how well they  are controlling their  diabetes. Most physicians consider a HbA1c % below 7.0 to be a measure of good diabetic control.  This simple addition of eating vegetables before carbohydrate can be an easy way to improve diabetic control. Click here to read this  interesting study.

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