There are certain myths about potatoes, such as that they have negative effects on blood glucose levels, which have given this food a certain bad reputation on a nutritional level. However, it is possible that these beliefs are undeserved and that potatoes can even help control weight.
Potatoes and beans to control glucose
This is stated in a study by the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University and published in the academic world Journal of Medicinal Food.
Specifically, the article details the results of an investigation in which the authors took 36 participants between the ages of 18 and 60 with insulin resistance for eight weeks and assigned them a dietary pattern based on potatoesbeans or a control.
Both the potatoes and the beans achieved better blood glucose control than the control diet, and in the case of the potato-based diet there was also an improvement in the index of insulin resistance. On the other hand, both patterns were effective for reduce body weight.
Higher satiety, fewer calories
Based on this, and as explained by the medical news portal Medscapeit can be concluded that potatoes can constitute an important element in diets that pursue control of sugar or body weight in patients who have medical reasons for it.
On the one hand, potatoes contain a wide range of key nutrients and do not increase the risk of type II diabetes, as is often believed; on the other, if we take into account that people tend to eat the same weight of food regardless of its caloric content and that potatoes are a heavy food but low in calories, they increase satiety for the same caloric intake compared to other foods.
If we add to this that people often find it difficult to maintain a diet that is not varied and that, on the other hand, potatoes can prepare in many different waysadded to their comparatively low price, potatoes are an ideal food for interventions on the patient’s diet.
References
[ PubMed ][ Cross Ref ]Rebello CJ, Bail RA, Greenway FL, Atteberry KC, Hoddy KK, Kirwan JP. Low-Energy Dense Potato- and Bean-Based Diets Reduce Body Weight and Insulin Resistance: A Randomized, Feeding, Equivalence Trial. J Med Food (2022) doi: 10.1089/jmf.2022.0072.
Medscape. Eating potatoes is healthy (2023). Viewed online at https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/987737 on 02/13/2023