Protein mix may lower diabetics' blood sugar

An insulin-boosting protein mixture may help keep diabetics' blood sugar in check after a carb-heavy meal, new research shows.

The study found that when men with Type 2 diabetes drank a beverage with carbohydrates and a mixture of particular proteins, their blood sugar response was lower than it was after a carb-only drink.

The protein mix - casein hydrolysate, which is derived from milk, and two amino acids, leucine and phenylalanine - had previously been shown to stimulate the body's production of the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar. Type 2 diabetes arises when the body can no longer use insulin properly.

The study included 10 men with long-standing type 2 diabetes and nine healthy men who each drank a carb-only beverage and one containing carbohydrates and the protein mixture. The researchers measured the men's insulin and blood sugar responses to each beverage.

Among the diabetic men, the insulin response was three to four times greater after the protein-spiked beverage than after the carb-only drink. Their subsequent blood sugar levels were 28 percent lower, on average, according to the findings published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Dr. Luc J.C. van Loon, a researcher at Maastricht University and the study's senior author, described the improvement in insulin response as "enormous."

The next step, he told Reuters Health, is to see whether the current findings hold true in a "daily life setting," including after a real meal rather than a test drink.

All of the diabetic men in the study had had the condition for at least 10 years and were no longer producing the high levels of insulin that mark the beginning stages of Type 2 diabetes. Instead, their post-meal insulin responses were impaired.

But the protein mix boosted their insulin response by 299 percent, on average-compared with a 132-percent increase among healthy men.

Eventually, van Loon said, the mix could be used along with insulin-sensitizing oral medications to help manage type 2 diabetes.

The study received funding from the Netherlands-based DSM Food Specialties, which supplied the casein protein.

SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 2005.