Does the Order You Eat Your Food In Affect Blood Sugar? A Mouse Study Says Maybe

The order in which you eat different foods may change your blood sugar. Research in mice suggests that having fat before carbohydrates can reduce the sharp rise in blood sugar that usually follows a meal. Scientists at Kyoto University also learned more about how hormones and nerve signals work together to cause this effect.

Keeping blood sugar from rising too high after eating is a key part of managing diabetes. Earlier studies in people have shown that eating vegetables, protein or fat before carbohydrates can limit these increases. That suggests that changing the order of a meal could be a practical and lasting way to improve blood sugar, without cutting out whole food groups.

Scientists generally explain the effect in two ways. One is slower gastric emptying, which means food moves more gradually from the stomach to the small intestine. The other is a larger release of hormones called incretins, such as GLP-1, that help the body regulate blood sugar. What they did not fully understand was how hormones from the gut and pancreas interact with the nervous system.

To find out, an international team ran experiments in mice. After an overnight fast, the mice were split into three groups. One group got water, followed by glucose, a type of sugar. The second group got olive oil and then glucose 15 minutes later. The third group got glucose first and olive oil 15 minutes after that. The scientists measured blood sugar and several hormones, including insulin, glucagon, GIP and GLP-1. They also used acetaminophen, a common pain reliever, to estimate how fast the stomach was emptying. The team then repeated the work in other mice, including mice with type 2 diabetes and mice that could not respond to GLP-1.

Corresponding author Daisuke Yabe of Kyoto University said his group is interested in everyday dietary approaches that people can keep up with. He said meal sequencing is appealing because it only changes how a meal is eaten rather than asking people to avoid entire food groups. The study found that olive oil before carbohydrates slowed digestion and blood sugar rose less, including in the mice with type 2 diabetes. This was research in mice, so more work is needed to know if it applies to people.