Type 2 Diabetes Fibre Diet – Why is it so Important?
If you are a person living with Type 2 Diabetes, understanding how to incorporate fibre to your diet will help keep your blood glucose Time-in-Range at the level agreed with your MSW Healthcare Professional.
How can MySugarWatch® (MSW) Help with Diet?
MySugarWatch® helps people living with Type 2 diabetes or who are pre-diabetic to monitor their blood glucose levels every 5 minutes at a glance over a 14-hour day and gives them a Time-in-Range (TIR®) percentage score.
MySugarWatch® have a team of Type 2 Diabetes Specialists who support our MSW® Club Members in controlling their blood glucose levels, assisting them to manage their diet and exercise and regulate their TIR
Diet is a key factor for a person living with Type 2 Diabetes, as food containing fibre can provide a range of health benefits to enable better management of their blood glucose.
Fibre is an important nutrient found mainly in vegetables, fruits, lentils, grains and cereals. This plays a key role in regulating blood sugar levels helping prevent potentially serious complications that may occur with Type 2 Diabetes.
How Can Fibre Helps Manage Type 2 Diabetes?
Research into Type 2 Diabetes highlights that eating more fibre can improve blood glucose levels (1). The human body is unable to digest or breakdown fibre; as a result, these plant-based foods do not cause a spike in blood glucose levels the same way other foods may do.
How Fibre Contributes to Weight Loss?
Achieving a healthy weight and maintaining it is an important way to prevent Type 2 Diabetes and other serious health conditions.
Understanding how fibre works in the body to achieve weight loss and maintain a healthy blood glucose level helps people living with Type 2 Diabetes manage their condition. Fibre rich foods stays in the stomach longer causing extended periods of feeling ‘full’ and is also known to be lower in calories which supports weight management.
An Article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) written by Taylor et al in 2021 summarises the new understanding of type 2 diabetes and discusses how different changes to food intake can achieve the necessary weight loss and maintenance required for remission of Type 2 Diabetes (2).
Types of Fibre
There are two types of fibre to be aware of and to understand the differences between the two can help to maximise the benefits of this nutrition within the diet.
- Soluble Fibre
This type of fibre dissolves in water to form a gel-like material. This tends to regulate the speed of digestion, stabilize blood glucose and support absorption of nutrients and is commonly found in oats, peas, beans, apples, citrus fruits, carrots and barley.
- Insoluble Fibre
This type of fibre does not dissolve in water, it adds bulk to our stools and promotes the movement of food through your digestive system. It is commonly found in whole-wheat flour, wheat bran, nuts, seeds, lentils, beans, some fruit and vegetables such as cauliflower, green beans and potatoes.
Government guidelines published in July 2015 say our dietary fibre intake should increase to 30g a day, as part of a healthy balanced diet (3). Because, currently most adults are only eating an average of about 18g day, we need to find ways of increasing our intake.
Recommendation of fibre in the diet
| Food per 100g | Amount of Fibre (g) |
| White rice | 0.6 |
| Porridge oats | 0.9 |
| Red and green peppers | 1.0 |
| Tomatoes | 1.0 |
| Onions | 1.1 |
| Mushrooms | 1.2 |
| Rocket | 1.3 |
| Lettuce | 1.3 |
| Baked potato | 1.4 |
| Butternut squash | 1.4 |
| Bean sprouts | 1.5 |
| Spaghetti | 1.5 |
| Cauliflower | 1.6 |
| Green peppers | 1.6 |
| Leeks | 1.7 |
| Beetroot | 1.9 |
| Couscous | 1.9 |
| Runner beans | 2.0 |
| Carrots | 2.1 |
| Spinach | 2.1 |
| Sweet potato | 2.4 |
| Bagel | 2.4 |
| Sweetcorn | 2.6 |
| Pasta twists | 2.7 |
| Curly Kale | 2.8 |
| Mung beans | 3.0 |
| Brown bread | 3.5 |
| Baked beans | 3.8 |
| Malted wheat cereal | 8.3 |
| Brussel Sprouts | 4.1 |
| Garlic | 4.1 |
| Peas | 4.5 |
| Blackeye beans | 4.6 |
| Butter beans | 4.6 |
| Parsnips | 4.7 |
| Broad beans | 5.4 |
| Soya beans | 6.1 |
| Muesli | 6.7 |
| Weetabix | 7.3 |
| Oatcakes | 8.8 |
| Hummus | 9.1 |
| Shredded wheat | 10.5 |
| Rye crisp breads | 14.2 |
| Red kidney beans | 15.7 |
MySugarWatch® is here to help
If you are a person living with Type 2 Diabetes, a diet that includes an adequate amount of fibre can help you manage your daily blood glucose levels and reduce your risk of potential complications. It may be difficult at first to incorporate more fibre into your diet.
If you wish to book a private consultation with a MySugarWatch® Diabetes Specialist who can advise you on fibre rich recipes Please click here (book a consultation).
Watch our Diabetes Nutrition Specialist Sandra show a Simple Fibre Rich Recipe for Type 2 Diabetes
References:
- Weickert, M. and Pfeiffer, A (2018) ‘Impact of dietary fiber consumption on insulin resistance and the prevention of type 2 diabetes’, The Journal of Nutrition, 148 (1), pp7-12. doi: 10.1093/jn/nxx008
- Taylor, R., Ramachandran, A., Yancy, W. and Forouhi, N (2021) ‘Nutr
- itional basis of type 2 diabetes remission’, BMJ, 374, (1752), pp. 1-6. doi:10.1136/bmj.n1752
- NHS (2019) Eat Well. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well (Accessed: 23 October 2022)
- Public Health England (2015) ‘The composition of foods’. 7th Edn. Cambridge: Mc Cance Widdowson