Whether you’ve recently been diagnosed with diabetes, or been living with it as my uncle did, since the age of five, you know the rules. You watch your carbs, you check your glucose, and depending on what type of diabetes you have, manage with insulin or pills.
You KNOW what to do. This is your life.
Well, yours and about 30 million other Americans life...
According to the American Diabetes Association diabetes causes more deaths a year than breast cancer and AIDS combined. Having diabetes nearly doubles your chance of having a heart attack. Sounds bleak, I know. Not to mention learning all this information about diabetes, right? What is a glucometer machine? What is an insulin pump? What IS diabetes disease?
But hey, you can manage it and you do. You've got this.
Here's the thing, there is something you probably don’t know about and it's kind of a big deal!
Everyone’s body starts to decrease its natural production of collagen sometime after the age of twenty. This decrease in collagen leads to slower metabolism, weight gain, lower energy levels, digestive problems, and joint pain. Collagen makes up for a third of the protein in your body. It’s also estimated that the decrease is about 1% a year. Doesn’t sound like much? Conservatively, that means you could have lost 20% of your body’s capacity to produce collagen by the age of 50!
Okay, so what does this specifically have to do with diabetes?
Diabetics lose collagen even faster than non-diabetics. Eek! This is a result of high blood sugar and glycation. This is when sugar molecules attach to collagen throughout the body and prevent its functioning.
Studies have shown that the blood sugar levels remain more stable in diabetics who consume protein with their carbs. Additionally, collagen has been shown to help stabilize blood sugar levels more efficiently than other proteins. Supplementing glycine (which is abundant in collagen) has been shown to positively impact insulin secretion naturally in diabetics.
CONCLUSION:
Combining collagen protein with carbohydrates is an effective way of increasing glucose tolerance and helping to stabilize blood sugar in diabetics.
