Insulin Load of a meal

[Deleted member 29589]

Hi All: I am a type 2 and have created a 14 day meal plan that includes : Carbs, Calories, Protein, Fat and Insulin Load for each meal. A great deal of importance seems to be placed on keeping the Insulin Load of a meal low. However is that figure only relevant for that meal or do I add-up the insulin load for each of my meals to arrive at a daily total. If so what is an acceptable "daily insulin Load" please.

 

[grovesy]

What do you mean by Insulin Load are you on Insulin?

 

[Deleted member 29589]

What do you mean by Insulin Load are you on Insulin?

I am a diet controlled Type 2... the Insulin load parameter is the estimated effect that an ingredient / meal has on the bodies need for its own insulin.

 

[silentsquirrel]

I have never heard of this term. How is it different from minimising the carbs in a meal?

 

[eggyg]

Never heard of it. I’ve had a quick Google and can’t find anything about it except a medical paper relating to older men with cardiovascular problems.

 

[Deleted member 27171]

Is this another name for Glycaemic load? I‘ve not heard of insulin load before.

 

[Deleted member 29589]

From "Optimizing Nutrition": This supportive method has been around for many years.

If we take the concept of “net carbs” and the idea that protein has some insulinogenic effect we can calculate the proportion of insulinogenic calories using the following formula:


This calculation could be useful to determine whether one food is better than another if you’re trying to reduce your insulin load to the point that your pancreas can keep up.

As demonstrated by the chart below, the lower the proportion of insulinogenic calories in your food the less likely your meal is going to require large amounts of insulin, raise your blood glucose or cause you to store fat.

 

[Deleted member 29589]

Never heard of it. I’ve had a quick Google and can’t find anything about it except a medical paper relating to older men with cardiovascular problems.

(PDF) Food insulin index: Physiologic basis for predicting insulin demand evoked by composite meals

PDF | Diets that provoke less insulin secretion may be helpful in the prevention and management of diabetes. A physiologic basis for ranking foods... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

 

[silentsquirrel]

Perhaps it is used in the USA - we don't refer to 'net carbs' here in the UK, fibre has already been subtracted.

 

[Deleted member 27171]

Maybe it’s a query for a dietitian, all going a bit over my head. Probably worth bringing up next time you see you one if you do or If you haven’t seen a dietitian already could request the GP refers you on to one.

 

[Deleted member 29589]

Never heard of it. I’ve had a quick Google and can’t find anything about it except a medical paper relating to older men with cardiovascular problems.

Google: dietary insulin load

 

[DaveB]

I've never heard of this and I think it's irrelevant. Just look at the Fats, Protein and Carbs. Forget Calories as they are also irrelevant. Keep the Carbs down and that should be all you need. to follow going forward.

 

[trophywench]

There again, there's no point whatever in eating a greater amount of carbs than a T2's body can sustain and reduce the increase in BG back down to a normal reading pdq and the only way to find this out is to test the BG before and after eating, without resorting to anything whatever complicated.

In any event nobody can tell you what your body can sustain or can't as each different person is, funnily enough, different - so it's entirely individual to each individual.

 

[Docb]

If I can chip in. I'm with @Alannah. It's an interesting approach but an unnecessary over-complication largely because the way the body works is not as precise as that approach implies. A bit of personal experimentation to work out a daily carb intake that works for you and then planning meals around that figure seems to work well enough for those who go down the reduced carb route.

As Shirley Conran aptly put it... "Life is too short to stuff a mushroom"... and I reckon this comes under the mushroom stuffing heading.