How do black beans help maintain healthy blood sugar balance?

Special Announcement
Our New Vegetable Advisor is here! Try it and find out how you are doing on your veggie intake.

The George Mateljan Foundation, a not-for-profit foundation with no commercial interests oradvertising, is a new force for change to help make a healthier you and a healthier world.
How do black beans help maintain healthy blood sugar balance?

The landmark “protein-plus-fiber” combination in black beans and other legumes is also a key to their outstanding support for blood sugar balance and blood sugar regulation. As described earlier, protein and fiber can move through our digestive tract at a moderate pace. Unlike dietary sugar (which can move too quickly), or fat (which can move too slowly), both protein and fiber can move at a moderate pace. By steadying rate of movement through the digestive tract, protein and fiber help to steady the breakdown of food into component parts, including simple sugars. This better-regulated breakdown of food helps to prevent extremes with respect to simple sugar uptake from the digestive tract. Too much simple sugar uptake all at once can result in an unwanted blood sugar spike. Too little simple sugar uptake can result in an unwanted blood sugar drop. Either extreme can work to destabilize blood sugar balance. The 15 fiber grams and 15 protein grams in one cup of black beans help prevent both extremes – excessive simple sugar release from the digestive tract, and also insufficient simple sugar release.
With respect to prevention of type 2 diabetes, researchers have become especially interested in some of the alpha-amylase inhibitory effects of black beans. Naturally occurring compounds in this legume slow down the activity of alpha-amylase enzymes. Since these enzymes are important for breaking down starch into sugar, their slowing down can result in less sugar release from food starches. We suspect that the alpha-amylase inhibitors in black beans work together with proteins and fibers to help steady blood sugar levels and make this legume especially valuable for blood sugar regulation. Although we’ve seen numerous studies showing decreased risk of type 2 diabetes following increased intake of fiber from plant foods (and especially legumes), we have yet to see a large-scale human study showing particular benefits for type 2 diabetes prevention from increased intake of black beans (versus increased intake of plant fibers, including all legume fibers). But we would not be surprised to see a black bean study that showed this legume to be a standout in the area of type 2 diabetes prevention.

Printer friendly version
Send this page to a friend…

Find Out What Foods You Should Eat This Week
Also find out about the recipe, nutrient and hot topic of the week on our home page.

Everything you want to know about healthy eating and cooking from our new book.Order this Incredible 2nd Edition at the same low price of $39.95 and also get 2 FREE gifts valued at $51.95. Read more

Healthy Eating
Healthy Cooking
Nutrients from Food
Website Articles
Community
Privacy Policy and Visitor Agreement
References
For education only, consult a healthcare practitioner for any health problems.

We’re Number 1in the World!
35 million visitors per year.The World’s Healthiest Foods website is a leading source of information and expert on the Healthiest Way of Eating and Cooking. It’s one of the most visited website on the internet when it comes to “Healthiest Foods” and “Healthiest Recipes” and comes up #1 on a Google search for these phrases.

Over 100 Quick &Easy Recipes
Our Recipe Assistant will help you find the recipe that suits your personal needs. The majority of recipes we offer can be both prepared and cooked in 20 minutes or less from start to finish; a whole meal can be prepared in 30 minutes. A number of them can also be prepared ahead of time and enjoyed later.

World’s HealthiestFoods is expanded
What’s in our new book:
180 more pages
Smart Menu
Nutrient-Rich Cooking
300 New Recipes
New Nutrient Articles and Profiles
New Photos and Design

Source: How do black beans help maintain healthy blood sugar balance? : WH Foods