Today lets discuss another article that relates to the effect that our individual gut microbiomes have on how our bodies process nutrients. The work surrounding the microbiome is typically focused on defining what makes a "good" one, or a "bad" one. The research we discuss today doesn't do any of that, it actually probes an interesting topic. Bread.
Well thats it, you are likely thinking, justtryme90's life must be really boring if he thinks BREAD is an interesting topic. You just might be right! Nevertheless this is a topic that is relevant to many of us, because bread is a very popular food.
Today we will dive into some work published in the journal Cell Metabolism titled "Bread Affects Clinical Parameters and Induces Gut Microbiome-Associated Personal Glycemic Responses"
Bread and The Glycemic Index
Bread, it sure makes up a lot of the human diet. Estimates place it somewhere around 10% of our total caloric consumption! [2].
Bread is high in carbohydrates and as such it has the potential to have a pretty big impact on our blood sugar levels. As type II diabetes is becoming more and more pervasive in society, many of us must keep track of our blood sugar levels and try to eat more foods that have less of an impact. To assist in this many people turn to what is known as the glycemic index. This is just a number assigned to a food which tries to predict the effect that food will have on blood glucose levels. As maintaining a controlled post eating blood glucose level makes it significantly less challenging to mitigate diabetic symptoms.
Despite bread being a high carbohydrate food, we are told that not all bread is created equally. You hear all over the place that white bread is much worse for blood sugar then whole wheat bread. White bread is assigned a glycemic index number of 73/100, while whole wheat ranges from 71 down to 51.[3] The logic behind this lower assignment for glycemic index, is that whole wheat bread contains a lot of fibrous material, and as such should slow the absorption of sugars by our bodies.
So based upon these numbers we should assume that yes, white bread is worse for blood sugar than whole wheat! Whole wheat has a lower glycemic index! Duh, you dummy, why even ask this question? Tch, what an idiot this guy.
But Wait... Didn't You Mention New Research and Microbiome?
That's right, you can set your pitch forks down for now. We've some new research to discuss. In the study that I brought up the researchers were looking at the effects that consumption of either whole wheat sourdough (yum) bread or refined flour white bread (less yum...) had on various aspects of participants body biochemistry and their microbiomes.
What they report is surprising
The researchers had 20 participants, half supplemented their diets with only white bread, and the other half with only the whole wheat sourdough bread. What they found was that with regards to glycemic control (effect that the two types of bread had on the participants blood sugar levels, based on an oral glucose tolerance test there was NO difference.
Wait a minute... what?
The researchers also looked for changes in microbiome composition between the two groups. What they found was that the white bread eaters had an increase in the amount of a gut bacteria called Eubacterium ventriosum while the whole wheat sour dough eaters did not. Eubacterium vertriosum, the authors report, produces a fatty acid called butryate which is thought to be protective against colon cancer [4]. So white bread ...leads to more bacteria that protect against colon cancer then wheat bread...
Wait... What?
So all of that data pertains to the averages from the two groups, the authors then also looked for trends inside of each group. This is where things get even more interesting.
Different People Respond To White or Whole Wheat Bread Differently
What they found was that, inside of the two sample sets (those who ate white bread, and those who ate wheat bread), that some individuals maintained a very good blood sugar levels after eating the white bread, while others did not. The same was true for the whole wheat bread, some had good blood sugar levels while others did not. This result makes no sense if we just rely on the glycemic index, because that indicates that a person should not have a better tolerance to white bread over whole wheat sourdough. Nevertheless, 25% of the participants in the study DID.
Is The Microbiome Involved?
They then wanted to know whether or not there was some difference in the microbiome of individuals that made them better able to process white bread, or the whole wheat sourdough bread. What they found was that by looking at the microbiome composition of the individuals that they could predict, whether or not they would better respond to white or whole wheat sourdough, reporting that two bacteria are the determining factors: Coprobacter fastidiosus and Lachnospiraceae bacterium 3_1_46FAA. What they do not know as of yet is WHY these bacteria lead to the observed results.
Conclusions
The glycemic index is not a good predictor for how white or whole wheat bread will effect the blood sugar of an individual, and the bacteria that live in your gut do play a role in this process.
White bread is not necessarily worse for blood sugar then whole wheat bread, in fact for some people, it's better.
Sources
- http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/pdf/S1550-4131(17)30288-7.pdf
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26590418
- http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/whole-wheat-bread-good-blood-sugar-3955.html
- http://jn.nutrition.org/content/134/2/479.long
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If you like this work, please consider giving me a follow: @justtryme90. I am here to help spread scientific knowledge and break down primary publications in such a way so as to cut through the jargon and provide you the main conclusions in short (well compared to the original articles at least!) and easy to read posts.
Im curious if one would be able to supplement or alter enzymatic occurrences within the gut via external means, in an effort to change the productivity of one relative to the other.
It's an interesting question and I don't know the answer. There are studies going on that I have heard about with researchers attempting to modify the microbiome composition to treat an underlying condition. However I havent read the results from any of these. It's all a bit of a black box to me yet, and I am waiting eagerly for the data to be available which will tell me more. (Unless there are useful articles out there I have not seen, it's also possible, I can not keep up to current status on all that many topics lol, only one small brain ).
I've heard some "health pros" compare white bread and whole wheat bread as coke vs Diet Coke. Neither is really heathy for you. Flour isn't a whole food. Also, flour by itself tastes pretty terrible...you have to add things like salt, sugar, oils, etc to give it flavor. Better off sticking to whole natural foods.
I do not know how you can live without bread, but I'm enjoying it right now. Freshly baked bread with butter - mmm.
And comparison of bread with coke is incorrect. During World War II a lot of people survived eating only bread. Can one survive drinking coke?
It's a good comparison. Most bread is junk, and the ones that are actually very healthy are often too expensive for most people. That's just how it is though, we live in a society where junk food is the cheapest option a lot of the times.
Junk food is cheap and convenient, but you get what you pay for. Another problem with the breads found in supermarkets is the additives. If you look carefully, lots of them use High Fructose Corn Syrup and preservatives. The ingredients look like a small paragraph.
Thanks for your input!
No prob. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the taste of bread and will eat it on occasion. Just like everything in life...do it in moderation. I just feel that some people eat way too much whole wheat bread and think it's healthy for them. It's very easy to overconsume carbs.
Wise words. Very true.
These was a very important knowledge for diabetes patient. They actually have to calculate the sugar level contained in the food before consume it.
For those in age of 40,please take note you are in a higher probability to get a diabetes. Dont eat a high sugar level of food for so much.
Oh, am I writting too much?
Sorry
Its a good idea to think about how much sugar we are consuming. Sound advice.
Thanks,just upvoted you!
Thanks for taking the time to read, and sharing your thoughts. Have a great day!
It's just always confusing, you never know what to believe. So many studies can contradict each other in different ways. I think just mix it all up then at least your half right in which one is better.
This is true, you never know what to believe and in fact with science thats usually a good thing. We can only go where the data points us. When you have enough data all pointing in the same direction, then thats usually the right way to go. The jury is still out with regards to this, however there is a path for the research to continue to go down. Unfortunately progress takes a while. It's still interesting to watch things unfold IMO. I love discussing it as well.
I had seen news articles and such talking about this before but I found this article to actually be helpful. I do eat way less white bread but mostly because I find others taste better to me. Argh now I want a grilled cheese lol
Grilled cheese... mmmm. Plane old white bread is really good for grilled cheese :D
I personally think white bread does more harm too to the body and ultimately increasing blood sugar. I just eat wheat bread and at a minimum. Got to protect our future. ;)
This study indicates that there is more to it then that. Wheat bread may actually be worse for you depending on your own microbiome composition.
To be safe..wihout the hassle of knowing which microbiome an indiviual have,
EAT RICE, white or brown or red or purple?
How do you know there is not variability there as well? It just hasn't been found yet.
that was a joke..but while there's no study done as yet, we Filipinos will stick to rice ;)
:D
This post received a 28% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @justtryme90! For more information, click here!
Well thanks me and thanks @randowhale.
Much informative posts with insights for certian medical conditions. Highly Commendable and Appreciated work.
Thank you for your kind words. I am glad you enjoyed the post.
Nice artical. Im going to follow you.
Thank you, I will return the favor.
It was a common saying among the Puritans, "Brown bread and the Gospel is good fare."
As it turns out, it's a bit more complicated. However, brown bread is quite tasty, I love a good whole wheat.
I was just curious that how much you get from randowhale?
The vote seemed to be about $14 on this post. Pretty good if you ask me :)
Ok thanks
I find that wheat bread makes better toast :)
I personally love Rye toast. Maybe I am just weird though!
It's as if you don't want to live(!), but hey, rye is okay too.
:D
But Oprah says that she eats bread EVERYDAY? Are you saying that's unhealthy?
Nope, I am not.
Great info! Yeah I always wondered about it.
Thank you for reading :)
Definitely, I am always interested in the effect of food on the body. Food is the number reason for most diseases, so all info on food is very interesting to me.
Excellent overview. Bread has always disagreed with me causing heartburn, as much as i love it. I bake my own wholewheat seeded now and eat in moderation. Ive also completley cured the heartburn by eating home made sauerkraut regularly. So clearly gut bacteria is a big factor in digestability as you say.
Yeah, it seems like gut bacteria are a big factor in quite a wide variety of our health's aspects. The data on that is only just beginning to come out, for the longest time it was thought they were not important, just sort of there. That thinking was pretty darn wrong.
Once again great article by you. Thanks for providing the platform a healthy and good content
Thank you for the kind words @health-trail :D
I will keep working hard.
Just to tell you buddy I am building health-trail
I know ;)
Very awesome study...I love when people get so worked up over how natural foods must be better.
The way I like to think about blood sugar is not necessarily how fast it "spikes sugar" but how does it change your overall resistance to insulin (For a type 2 diabetic)? Did they use hemoglobin A1c as the testing measure? The way to measure actual insulin resistance most accurately would have been to get a c-peptide as well.
The microbiology part is also fascinating and one I had not considered. Maybe probiotics in general can help with type 2....
As a Type 1 diabetic I have noticed personal trends in blood sugar from years of having it and science backs this up. If you eat candy it's a simple sugar so it hits the systemic blood stream in less than 10 minutes. Fruit will do the same thing ( always annoying when Type 2 diabetics think it's healthy for them to eat LOTS of fruit...I see no scientific data in that because fruit often can be high calorie and spike blood sugar). Bread and rice tend to raise sugar in about 30 minutes because it takes time for the complex carbs to be broken down into simple sugars.
I always like to prove to people that bread is sugar by having them suck on a thin cracker. That cracker in your mouth will break down into simple sugars and you can start to taste the sweetness of it.
Thanks for providing more clarity on this topic. Carbs in general should try to be very limited from a Type 2s diet bottom line.
Did they use hemoglobin A1c as the testing measure? No they used an oral glucose test, which is not nearly as accurate. However as far as I know A1c is a good measure of average blood glucose over a long period of time and is great for identifying diabetics, however it is less useful for monitoring rapidly changing blood glucose, as the attachment of glucose to hemoglobin is not a real time process.
Yep, our spit contains amylase which does the breaking down of the long chain polysaccharides into single sugars.
Good ol' amylase. I understand why they were measuring oral glucose but there is not great data necessarily showing that spikes in sugar lead to more health complications than a bad average blood sugar over 3 months.
Lets say that a food like candy spikes the sugar to 300 mg/dl and bread raises if to 230 mg/dl over a longer period of time. The A1c, in my opinion, would be a better predictor on what is better to eat haha. So, the study would need to carry on for at least 3 months.
Again, thanks for writing this!
This is a very good point
Going to have to #BTFO on that anti-fruit conspiracy.
http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/what-can-i-eat/making-healthy-food-choices/fruits.html
Or better yet as that's a industry funded pile of garbage;
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/behindtheheadlines/news/2017-04-12-daily-diet-of-fresh-fruit-linked-to-lower-diabetes-risk/
Or if you don't mind a real life example;
http://mindfuldiabetic.com/
He has a youtube channel too, all he eats is sugary fruits and he's a type 1 diabetic and has helped thousands of other diabetics over the years.
Fruit raises blood sugar slower as it has way more fiber than most rices do, as well as lower fat than what you would likely typically eat with your rice or bread.
You're right that they turn into sugar, yes, all carbohydrates must be broken down to simple sugars to be used by the body, but fruit is hardly the devil here.
I don't disagree with the conclusion of the pubmed article. People who eat fresh fruit may have had better outcomes. However, are there other confounding variables?
For instance, maybe those who ate fruit chose to eat healthier overall, lost weight, and hence had less insulin resistance due to weight loss, leading to better glucose levels. There is for sure a correlation here, but a correlation does not necessarily mean it's a causation.
Eating fruits especially lower sugar fruits like cantaloupe are fine. Drinking the juice of fruit does not have the "fiber" and will lead to faster sugar spikes. When I think of diabetic complications, I think less about blood sugar spikes and more about average blood sugar over three months because there is much more data we can relate to that in relation to complications.
As far as the Type I diabetic....I am Type I myself. We make no insulin so we have to take insulin. Theoretically we can eat anything we want as long as we know how to count the exact carbohydrates in relation to the amount of insulin we need. So a Type I diabetic can eat sugar and still be in perfect control.
When I say limit fruit, I mean a Type II diabetic who does not take insulin. If I have a patient come in who is eating lots of sugary fuits...AND is losing weight, then I will not tell them to stop. Weight loss is the most important; if fruit makes them eat less calories, then great!
Again, I am not looking at spikes in sugar; I am looking at the overall average blood sugar, which we can relate directly to complications.
If you're not talking about blood sugar spikes I'd say there's even more of a reason for people to eat fruit as fruit is extremely low in fat (aside from avocados, etc) because lower fat means better insulin levels (type 2) in general as insulin resistance is almost entirely determined by fat in the bloodstream blocking glucose from entering cells.
Juice, yeah, that's horrible for diabetics, even if you're doing lots of exercise it's just a disaster.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15650564
If not fruit what could a diabetic possibly eat in it's place? There's no better carb in general other than potentially sweet potatoes, and it's unadvisible to have any more fat than absolutely necessary, and lean protein is rare to find unless it's in plant-sources as well is generally not beneficial to ones overall health in excess. Furthermore protein also requires insulin to metabolize, thus increasing insulin needed and thus insulin resistance.
I would disagree with some of your discussion on protein. While insulin is involved in protein metabolism, it does not elevate blood sugar. If you give a Type I diabetic a steak with no short-acting insulin, you will not see much increase in their blood sugar.
Furthermore, you talk about resistance. Resistance has everything to do with fat...as in excess weight in an individual...however, if a skinny individual eats fat it is not like that specific fat is floating around the bloodstream causing insulin resistance.
High fat foods should be discouraged because of its potential for weight gain. Sugar will eventually lead to more fat storage as well.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9416027
My recommendations: Eat the meals that are lower in carbs and eat protein that is lower in fat. If you do this, you will decrease your overall calories, lose weight, and have less insulin resistance.
you know most crackers also have white sugar in them?
If you are eating any type of breads, you are stuffing your body with junk starchy carbs that your body is not digesting properly.
It is all junk.
I make slow rise sourdough from organic spelt and hard winter wheat. It's incredible. I can eat as much as I want. I always feel great when I eat it. I am very fit. It gives a slower spike to my blood sugar than any commercially made breads. My previous girlfriend started losing weight after we moved in together, we think largely just because she was switching over from eating commercial bread to eating just our home made sourdough.
Also, there's a reason why bread is so hard on us here in the states...besides the fact that it's all highly processed and baked with shitty industrial bakers yeast.
I wrote a post about it last week
https://steemit.com/food/@itchykitten/the-real-reason-wheat-in-the-usa-is-dangerous-it-s-not-the-gluten
Yeah, I don't think that's at all true.
It's not the best thing to eat, fruit would be better, but it's hardly "junk" especially when compared to what most people eat. Unless you're a super-vibrating hippie raw foodist then breads probably one of the healthier things in your diet.
Great article, i really like the information breakdown.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed the post.
In short, for some white bread is good, for others whole wheat bread is better, and vice versa. And it this is highly person dependent (especially the vice versa part).
Hmmm, this being said, and as always, the error bars are huge (20 individuals). I am always surprized how conclusions can be made out of such a small sample.
PS: now I will make strange dreams about living breads!
Highly dependent on the person and appears to be dictated by microbiome composition. Which I found more surprising then perhaps I should have.
Studies involving people are always small. There just isn't anyway to make them huge (because it's so expensive) even for pharma with deep deep pockets, clinical trials involve maybe 200 patients in a round and cost tens of millions of dollars. Each. This is one of the drawbacks to actual human study. Now using an animal model you can get larger sample sizes.
Keep in mind this is why proving causation is so exceedingly tough in biological whole organism studies, just not enough replicates to see through the noise.
Yep... But to me. this is a kind of no-go. Without statistics (together with an appropriate way to determine the error, by the way), we are doomed. But I agree that it is good to start somewhere, and for qualititative statement this may be enough
Not everything can be studied to 5 sigma certainty my friend :)
I am too physics-biased :D
:D a high burden of proof is a good bias to have.
I love white bread lol
:D
Interesting read! Upvoted 👍🏼
Thanks!
Great content @justtryme90
Very good information for diabetic patients.
My mum is diabetic. She just read the post.
Thanks! The more research goes on, the more complicated we find things are. :)
Diabetes is tough.
Yeah !!!
This should be common knowledge. White bread has no health benefits. Only eat it if you are starving in an emergency situation.
That's not what the article says. ;)
Awesome Post thanks for the Article! Followed, Upvoted + Resteemed! Thanks for being awesome
Thank you for reading and your kind support. I am glad you enjoy my blog!
Very informative, congratulations!!:))
Thanks for reading :)
Always attentive to good things!!:))
White-carb vs whole- carb? After chewing and swallowing they both eventually turn into sugar - need to watch out for dangers of too much carbs over-all in the macronutrient balance with dietary fat and protein. Many health risks if total carb too high... see https://www.dietdoctor.com/ for more info..
Thank you for your input!
Thanks so much for posting! I wish I didn't like bread as much as I try, have been trying to phase it out of my diet as much and just have it as an occasional treat, but it is hard!!
Eh, I don't see anything wrong with eating it.
As far as i know bread is a very recent addition to the human diet, i cant understand why our ancestors gave up a very cool life style chasing mammoths and things in order to spend many boring man hours cultivating then consuming grass ?? Then having some self appointed tribal member come and take his 50% share of your hard worK!!!, I would suggest that bread was the first step in our enslavement . ;-)
Probably because it enabled us to have more sex or something. Sex is usually the answer. :D
Aye sex and beer possibly? they normally go hand in hand, at least in a beer drinkers head :-)
That's definitely true. :)
nice to meet you @justtryme90 . . thanks for the science update on bread.. I enjoyed the read. .. much success to you in Steemit I love bread :)
Glad you liked it! Bread is hard not to love, so tasty :D
Hey since I got your attention.. why do you have that link in your bio.. I know it brings us back to your blog.. my question is what is the significance of the characters in the link? Do they mean anything? I am going to go eat some bread and ponder it .. lol @justtryme90
;) That link counts how many times people click it. Its just a https://goo.gl/ URL shortener link.
I put it there because I was curious how many people actually look at that section. So far the answer is 24 people.
wow.. that is cool.. you are totally into research.. think what you could do with a psychology degree.. LOL>> how do I get a link like that.. I am nosey so that is why I check everyone out.. BTW: You have the same initials as my nephew.. I invited him to join...I know you are not him but thought that was something to share...I am writing all this and I have not had any coffee yet... Can I get a link like that? It interests me at the moment.
So in my previous message I put a link to the link shortener (https://goo.gl/). You can put any address you want into that service and generate the short link like I have. So just put the link to your steemit blog in there. :)
I think the world is better off with out me tinkering with their minds lol. :D
thanks my friend.. sounds great ..
very good info - i am following and want to see more like this on health - David
I will try to keep writing about interesting science. I will not let you down :)
THNX
Interesting post.
thank you much for this post!
Have a nice day @justtryme90
Thanks for reading! Glad you liked it. You have a nice day too @revelim.
Thanks for sharing this
Thank you for reading and your comment.
Great article. Keep it in that way!
Thanks! I will not let you down :)
Fascinating! I am always skeptical when people stress something so much "white bread will kill you!" When it reality, like so many things, it depends on your body.
Thanks!
Indeed it is! Well in reality most hyperbolic statements like that, are usually overly simplified, though perhaps rooted in truth. For the bread thing, it looks like there just isn't a simple answer. Our bodies are incredibly complex machines!
I have read this book and it opened my eyes! Since then I'm gluten free person :) Great post! Looking forward to read more @lavitaebella
https://www.amazon.com/Wheat-Belly-Lose-Weight-Health/dp/1609611543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399327191&sr=8-1&keywords=wheat+belly
Thank you for reading :)
Very informative especially for someone like me who loves bread.
The journal publication itself is pretty dense, but it was interesting, especially because the results were contrary to what I expected. Thanks for reading!
Interesting to read this post ... thanks @justtry
Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Thank you again. Hope we share information ...
great info!
Thank you for reading!
Wow, very informative @justtryme90 .
Learned quite a few things! :)
Thanks for taking some time out to give it a read! Much appreciated, and very glad you liked it.
Yup! I love bread and stuffs made with it :P
Me too :)
Hehehe :D
And here i though it was because im fat.
so basically we need to test out which of the breads are compatible with us.
good to know, surely gonna try yo get an eye out for that!
Gut baceteria is 100% determined by your diet in the last few weeks, so realistically it's not about testing to see what works for you if you would prefer the otherwise healthier option (whole wheat), but rather about manipulating your gut bacteria to respond better to it, be it by removing dairy which fucks it up quite a bit, or artificial sweeteners, etc.
That's the ideal.
If you've some time could you cite me some publications discussing this in more detail. I haven't read enough discussing the turnover of the microbiome.
I'll try to scoop some up soon, just made a big article on milk and I'm all citation-ed out.
I'll try to find one tomorrow.
No rush, and thanks a lot! The microbiome is a topic I really would like to further my knowledge about.
Lol.
Each of our bodies are a bit different, from our biochemistry all the way to the composition of the bacteria in our guts. We are finding as research continues that these differences result in quite a bit of variability as to our own responses to foods/drugs/ etc. It's pretty interesting I think.
Thanks for reading!
This is such a great article about bread, especially with everyone going gluten free lately. I like both kinds of bread for sandwiches, but I have been interested in baking my own bread instead of getting store bought brands. Thanks for all the information.
You're welcome, thanks for giving it a read.
Nice and very informative article. I wrote this related article you may find interesting, https://steemit.com/health/@motowngold/lead-found-in-20-of-baby-food-we-simply-must-demand-better
Thank you for sharing.
You are welcome, I am glad you found it of value.
i dont know about this post, but i know i love bread :)
I would call ya crazy if you didn't love bread :D
Thanks for taking a look and giving the post a read. Much appreciated.
I crave bread, but the calories are just too high to consume daily.
I have not eat bread from white flour lately, I buy it from dark or whole grains, but more often I bake bread myself, for this I mix whole wheat flour and dark flour, wrote here a post about bread that is baked
Sounds good, thanks for reading :)
I love to do the same
white bread is white normally for the same reason sugar is so white and it involved things like enrichment and things are taken out of the bread and the bread is then therefore not complete and therefore more bad for our bodies
The data indicates otherwise.