Can Adding Olive Oil to Your Diet Help Byetta Work Better?

The hottest new medication for type 2 diabetes is the GLP-1 mimetic exenatide, marketed in the USA as Byetta. The clinical evidence is highly preliminary, but it just may be that adding olive oil to the diet, without increasing total calories, may help Byetta work better.

The October 2007 edition of the Journal of Nutrition reports a study from Spain that found that replacing carbohydrate with mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) like those in olive oil at breakfast for 28 days:

Slowed the release of glucose into the bloodstream;

Lowered post-prandial (after-meal) blood glucose levels;

Raised HDL or “good” cholesterol;

Reduced the release of insulin (presumbably reducing fat storage); and,

Enhanced the pancreas’ production of GLP-1.

Byetta is a drug that acts in the body in the same way as GLP-1. Replacing carbohydrates with MUFA-rich plant oils presumably also lowers blood sugar, raises HDL cholesterol, and reduces appetite.

The Spanish study confirmed that a Mediterranean diet is a good place to start getting your diabetes under control.

This doesn’t mean you have to start gulping down olive oil smoothies instead of your scrambled eggs or salmon, and it doesn’t mean the only time you can consume the heart-healthy and diabetes-friendly MUFAs is at breakfast. Almonds, avocados, peanuts, pecans, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds are all excellent sources of MUFAs.

A study completed at California’s City of Hope Medical Center in 2004 even found that dieters eating almonds instead of other complex, low-glycemic index carbohydrates but otherwise achieving the same calorie balance achieved:

50 per cent greater weight loss;

56 per cent greater fat loss; and, even more importantly,

nearly twice better improvement in insulin sensitivity

without any production of ketones. That is, dieters who added almonds to their diets, in this study, didn’t just lose water weight, and they didn’t get dieter’s bad breath.

Type 2 diabetics who use Byetta and those who do not may both benefit from MUFAs. Just be sure to use these healthy fats to replace carbohydrate calories, not to add to them.

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