Being diabetic indicates that you have a greater awareness of your food and intake of drink and the impact of the food you consume on your blood sugar levels. So, our post today focuses on the link between cocoa and diabetes.
You can easily eat sweets and chocolate even if you are diabetic.
To help you more in consuming cocoa products, you can easily consume these foods in moderate amounts; however, they need to get associated with an extensive healthier diet and lifestyle.
When you pick dark chocolate or any other cocoa product, you avail yourself of a robust taste of chocolate that helps you consume them less.
Make sure to inspect the labels for the content of carbs.
It helps you adjust the insulin levels where you enjoy these sweet delicacies.
How Does Cocoa Affect The Sugar Levels In Your Blood?
While you are wondering whether cocoa is best for diabetes or not, the initial queries are on how chocolate is affecting blood sugar levels.
Chocolate consists of a lower glycemic index, meaning that it never leads to any sharp rise in blood sugar levels whenever you are consuming it.
The reason is its higher fat amount and fiber content, both of which slow down digestion.
Dark chocolate sweetened with sugar and milk chocolate have higher GI levels than chocolate without sugar; however, they still have lower GI than any high-sugar, low-fiber snacks such as syrup and cake.
There is significantly better news about your blood sugar and chocolate.
It helps to enhance the issues that lead to type 2 diabetes, and consuming chocolate helps to increase insulin sensitivity.
Both actions lead to lower levels of blood sugar. In reality, consuming chocolate associated with a meal reduces the spike in blood sugar.
Advantages & Drawbacks Of Consuming Chocolate
Additionally, while satisfying your hunger cravings, there are several benefits to the health of consuming chocolate, mainly dark chocolate.
- Benefits
Flavonoids, the group of chemicals present in plants, can assist in reducing insulin resistance and improving insulin sensitivity.
Dark chocolate helps in reducing blood clotting.
Flavonoids present in cocoa can even enhance endothelial functions, causing lowered insulin resistance and thereby reducing the possible risks for future issues with the heart.
The endothelium is the membrane in the blood vessels and heart lining. There is a greater risk of stroke and heart attacks whenever there is endothelial dysfunction.
- Drawbacks
Every chocolate is different from one another, and white or milk chocolate never has similar benefits to health as dark chocolate.
Consuming foods such as chocolate chip cookies or chocolate cakes will never offer the benefits of such a smaller square of dark chocolates.
Consuming a lot of chocolate causes severe issues like weight gain and blood sugar levels.
Conclusion
You need to deprive yourself of cocoa even if you are suffering from diabetes, as you should consume them moderately. So, how can we link cocoa and diabetes?
Dark chocolates are noted to have several health benefits not offered by the other types of chocolate.
Additionally, it would help if you considered changes to your lifestyle behaviors, including exercise and diet, before deciding to indulge in it.
Whenever you want to incorporate chocolate into your diet, always speak to your physician about the ideal ways to get it done.