DIABETES & FIBER.

Eating more fiber may lower blood sugar and blood cholesterol levels in people with type 2 diabetes, say researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Abhimanyu Garg and colleagues put 12 men and one woman with diabetes on two different diets for six weeks each. The high-fiber diet contained 50 grams of fiber (half of it soluble), while the moderate-fiber diet had only 24 grams of fiber (a third of it soluble).

The results: Average blood sugar, insulin, and cholesterol levels were significantly lower on the high-fiber diet.

"Soluble fiber may delay the absorption of carbohydrate by forming a gel-like substance," explains Garg. "It also reduces cholesterol absorption."

What's remarkable about the two diets is that "there were only subtle differences, like orange sections instead of orange juice," says Garg.

"We selected fruits, vegetables, and whole grains that were rich in soluble fiber--foods like cantaloupe, grapefruit, oranges, papaya, raisins, lima beans, okra, sweet potato, winter squash, zucchini, granola, oat bran, and oatmeal," he adds. "We used no fiber supplements."

A diet rich in those ordinary foods lowered blood sugar as much as adding another drug to a diabetic's regimen.

New Eng. J. Med. 342: 1392, 1440, 2000.