DEAR DOCTORS: Can you please talk about the idea that the order in which you eat your food has an effect on your blood sugar? I have a friend who never eats sweets unless she can also have some vegetables and protein. Does this really matter?
DEAR READER: Your friend has tapped into a fascinating area of research that has found that the order in which food groups are consumed during a meal can indeed have an effect on the degree to which blood sugar fluctuates. This discovery is important because repeated and sizeable swings in blood sugar are linked to an increased risk of developing insulin resistance. That is when the body’s response to insulin becomes sluggish, which can cause elevated levels of blood glucose. Over time, insulin resistance can lead to someone developing pre-diabetes. If unchecked, it often escalates to Type 2 diabetes, a disease that affects an…
