Just eaten and you’re hungry again? How big dips in blood sugar levels make you eat more and can ruin your diet
- A large study shows a link between big drops in glucose levels and the struggle to lose weight or keep it off
- People who experience these larger drops feel hungrier and consume more calories
A new study – the biggest of its kind, monitoring 1,070 people over two weeks and including 8,000 breakfasts and 70,000 meals in total – indicates that people who experience big drops in blood sugar levels reasonably quickly after eating end up feeling hungrier and consume hundreds more calories during the day than others. It’s why some people struggle to lose weight, even on diets: they’re not being greedy; they really can’t help that hunger.
The research suggested those whose blood sugar fell faster (registered using stick-on continuous glucose monitors while participants logged sleep, exercise, what they ate and how they felt using technology and apps) experienced nearly 10 per cent more hunger, and waited around half an hour less, on average, before their next meal than ‘little dippers’, despite eating exactly the same meals. The ‘big dippers’ consumed around 300 extra calories – which could translate as an almost 10kg (22-pound) weight gain over a year.
What drives the sensation of hunger? What causes those big dips? And can people avoid them – short circuit the cycle of dips and hunger and weight gain?
Professor John Blundell of the Appetite Control and Energy Balance Research Group at the UK’s University of Leeds who was involved in the study, says a combination of specific foods and individual physiological characteristics cause the big dips in blood glucose.
“We know from many studies that the foods most likely to produce dips are the so-called high glycaemic foods – white bread, boiled rice, potatoes and highly processed carbohydrates – which can be rapidly digested to release glucose. The consumption of certain of these foods in combination with a person’s physiology creates a condition for a rapid rise in blood glucose followed by a sharp fall, leading to a low level blood glucose (a glucose dip). This dip is a form of transient hypoglycaemia and signals to the brain a potential low availability of energy.”