Type 2 diabetes: Best drink to have for breakfast to lower blood sugar

Type 2 diabetes is a condition that causes the body to stop reacting to inulin properly – a hormone the body makes to control the amount of glucose in blood. As a result a person’s blood sugar levels can become too high, triggering symptoms such as needing to go to the toilet more, changes in weight and blurred vision. If blood glucose isn’t controlled properly and stays too high, complications can occur including kidney failure, nerve damage, heart disease and stroke. So what can you do to control blood sugar?

Certain drinks have been found to hold blood sugar-lowering qualities

Eating a healthy diet and keeping sugar, fat and salt to a minimum is one way to manage blood sugar levels.

Experts also say it’s important to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, and not to skip meals.

So when it comes to the first meal of the day, breakfast, what should you consider eating and drinking?

The NHS says there’s nothing you cannot eat to control blood sugar levels, but certain drinks have been found to hold blood sugar-lowering qualities.

Water 

When it comes to hydration, water is one of the best drinks to consider for breakfast and throughout the day.

According to Gudrun Jonsson, the author of Gut Reaction and Dietary Advisor to Nibble Protein, water is the perfect beverage to help combat high blood sugar levels as it had no calorific value and zero additives.

He said: “Drinking more water will help your kidneys flush out the excess sugar in your system through urine.”

Tea 

Black tea and green tea were found to help type 2 diabetes in a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

As part of the research, black tea and green tea were given to diabetic rats for three months.

Alongside inhibiting diabetic cataracts, the tea was found to have a blood sugar-lowering effect.

The researchers wrote: “Black and green tea represent a potentially inexpensive, nontoxic, and, in fact, pleasurable [blood-sugar-lowering] agent.

“Tea may be a simple, inexpensive means of preventing or retarding human diabetes and the ensuring complications.”

Coffee

A 2012 study found drinking coffee may help lower a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

The researchers found the level of risk dropped even lower for participants who drank two to three cups per day, and this also held true for those who drank four or more cups per day.

Milk 

Consuming milk at breakfast lowers blood glucose throughout the day, a study published in the Journal of Dairy Science revealed.

Douglas Goff, PhD, and the team of scientists from the Human Nutraceutical Research Unit at the University of Guelph, in collaboration with the University of Toronto, examined the effects of consuming high-protein milk at breakfast on blood glucose levels and satiety after breakfast and after a second meal.

Milk consumed with breakfast cereal reduced postprandial blood glucose concentration compared with water, and high dairy protein concentration reduced postprandial blood glucose concentration compared with normal dairy protein concentration.

The high-protein treatment also reduced appetite after the second meal compared with the low-protein equivalent – a reduced appetite can help with weight loss, which is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes.

Tomato juice 

Low-level inflammation is a contribution factor to insulin resistance, particularly in people who are overweight.

But the authors of a June 2013 British Journal of Nutrition study found overweight and obese women experienced reduced inflammation after drinking around one and a half cups of tomato juice daily for three weeks.

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